The San Diego Padres haven’t made many baseball moves this offseason, and they’ve only added one real player. Korean infielder Sung Mun Song as a multi-positional depth piece who might even be able to grab a starting role, but now Song has an oblique injury that will keep him from baseball-related activities for approximately four weeks, according to Mark Polishuk of MLBTradeRumors.com via a Japanese news agency report.
This injury is a bigger deal than you might think. For starters, oblique injuries can be touch-and-go when it comes to the healing process, as Polishuk notes, so the possibility of a setback is larger than usual.
The real issue, though, is getting Song reps against MLB pitching. He’s coming over from the KBO League, where consistently high velocity isn’t exactly a staple, so those spring training at-bats are important for him. It’s easy enough to say that Song could miss some time at the beginning of the season, but falling too far behind could easily result in a lost season where Song never really catches up.
That same process also applies to playing in the field for a player like Song. He’s a multi positional player, which means he needs time to learn the nuances of playing several infield positions in MLB, not to mention playing the outfield if that’s part of his intended role. Song has a lot to learn, and much of that can’t happen if he’s watching rather than playing.
There’s another piece of the puzzle here, too, and that’s the World Baseball Classic, which begins in March. According to Polishuk, it’s not known if Song was going to play for the South Korean team in that tournament, or skip the dance to focus on his MLB prep time. A lot of international players consider the WBC as or more important than the upcoming MLB season, and we don’t know if Song will be one of those guys.
Then there’s the numbers equation. Many MLB teams have become skeptical about free agents who post big numbers playing in Asia, regardless of whether it’s in South Korea or Japan. Song had 19 homers and a .340/.409/.518 slash line over 602 plate appearances for the Kiwoom Heroes that year, and he followed up that performance by hitting .315/.387/.530 with 26 home runs in 646 PA in 2025.
Is it reasonable to assume Song will produce anything close to those numbers for the Padres this season? Probably not, but one thing we do know is that Song can’t acclimate successfully if he’s not playing, and at the moment it looks like it’s going to be at least a month before that process even starts.