As for the contact quality, that is the issue. How do we square that low quality of contact with a guy who had a 30 HR season in Korea? And if the contact skills are indeed poor, how does that profile play in a post-shift era? Is a fast dude with great contact skills more valuable now than before? I mean, Steven Kwan just had a pretty nice season for Cleveland and his contact quality numbers are notably worse than Kim's. They're also about the same size: 5'9", 170.
And the Korean league is clearly worse than Japan (and in particular has a higher offensive baseline), but if I told you that a 19 year old plus-defensive shortstop had posted a .290/.360/.490 line in, say, high-A, you'd find that pretty notable, right? Even if it came in a hitters' league, like the California League? The KBO is certainly a higher level of competition than the California League, and those were Kim's numbers as a 19 year old.
So I get that his offensive profile is a bit of a puzzle, but I think the trend is positive and getting into the AL East where the coastal marine layer and cavernous Mountain West parks are less of a factor would probably help his power play up a bit, too.
And let's not lose sight of the fact that the defense is the carrying tool here. In 2021, Kim managed 2 bWAR with a 73 OPS+, just based on the glove. The floor is high. A Kim-Story middle infield (once the latter returns from getting his elbow tendons taped back together) should be really good. Especially given that Bello has a Framber-like ground ball rate, and the shift is going away.