Meet Steven Kwan, The Cleveland Guardians’ .800 Hitter

As a major league hitter, you know you’re going good when you enter a game hitting .600 and then go 5-for-5.

Cleveland Guardians rookie outfielder Steven Kwan introduced himself to the American League over the weekend, and it was quite a coming out party.

“It’s three games in, but nobody wants to not get excited,” said Guardians manager Terry Francona.

Kwan gave his manager and his team plenty to get excited about. In the Guardians’ first two games of the season, at Kansas City, the diminutive (5-9, 170 pounds) 24-year-old left-handed hitter went 3-for-5 with a double, and three walks. On Sunday, in Cleveland’s 17-3 win, Kwan out-scored the Royals by himself, going 5-for-5, with a double, four singles, one hit by pitch, and four runs scored.

Three games into his major league career Kwan is hitting a rather garish .800 (8-for-10), with an .857 on-base percentage, 1.000 slugging percentage and 1.857 OPS, with two doubles, four runs, three walks, and no strikeouts.

“When our young guys do things like that it’s exciting,” said Francona.

Last year the Guardians were one of the weakest offensive teams in the American League, and they did nothing to improve the offense during the offseason. So Kwan’s early emergence as a pesky bat-to-ball artist is a welcome sight to his manager and teammates.

“I’m not surprised about what he’s doing,” said fellow outfielder Oscar Mercado of Kwan. “He is such a good player, knows himself and what he can do. He’s a sparkplug and it’s going to be awesome to watch him play this year.”

Kwan was a member of Oregon State’s College World Series champions in 2018. The Indians selected him in the fifth round of that year’s draft, and he hasn’t stopped hitting since then.

He hit over .300, with more walks than strikeouts, in each of his three minor league seasons, and over the winter he was one of a whopping 11 minor league prospects the Guardians added to their major league roster, in order to protect them from the Rule 5 draft.

In his first major league spring training camp this year Kwan impressed everyone with his advanced hit tool, and his ability to consistently make contact. He did not strike out in 34 spring training plate appearances, while hitting .469 (15-for-32), with a .500 on-base percentage and .531 slugging percentage.

He basically just hit his way into the Guardians’ plans for 2022, and his three-game debut was everything that was hoped for, and more.

As Francona pointed out, it’s a very small sample size, just three games. American League pitchers haven’t had time yet to dissect Kwan’s swing for weaknesses. Once they do, it will be up to him to adjust, as part of the cat-and-mouse back-and-forth between pitchers and hitters, which is as old as the game itself, eventually reveals whatever it may reveal.

But Kwan’s calm demeanor, in and out of the batter’s box, his feel for the game, and the consistency of his swing suggests a potential contributor to a lineup that desperately needs exactly that.

Francona hit Kwan in the No. 7 spot in the order on opening day, but immediately moved him to the No. 2 slot in the next two games, one of which came against a left-handed starter. Being a left-handed hitter with low-strikeout and high-contact rates would seem to stamp Kwan as a perfect fit in the No. 2 hole.

Kwan also had no problems with left-handed pitching in the minor leagues. Last year at Double-A Akron he slashed .331/.414/.500 against right-handers and .353/.404/.647 against left-handers.

In the minor leagues Kwan played mostly center field, but with speedy Myles Straw now a fixture in center with Cleveland, Kwan will move to a corner.

For now, everything is tentative because Kwan’s major league career consists of just three games. But for long-suffering Guardians fans looking for a three-game sample to dream on, a batting average of .800 will do just fine.