‘Kwannie in Wonderland’ playing in Cleveland
Steven Kwan
When I caught up with Steven Kwan, he was enjoying a walk Thursday in his new hometown, Cleveland, on an off day for the Guardians. When I asked for a check on his emotions about his first week as a major-leaguer, he laughed.
“What has happened so far is beyond my wildest dreams,” Kwan tells me. “It has been a magical experience.”
That’s for sure. Something out of a Disney movie, perhaps. Kwannie in Wonderland?
Kwan was the toast of the big leagues during his first week with the team formerly known as the “Indians.” The rookie outfielder from Oregon State entered Wednesday play leading the majors in batting average (.667, 10 for 15), on-base percentage (.789) and on-base-plus-slugging percentage (1.789). After Wednesday, when he went 0 for 4 with a bases-loaded walk in a 7-3 win at Cincinnati, Kwan had fallen all the way to … .526, .655 and 1.392, ranking second in each category.
When I tell Kwan he probably wasn’t going to finish the season with a 162-game hitting streak, he laughs.
“You’d like to, but MLB pitching is pretty good,” he says. “They got me yesterday.”
More often, it has been Kwan doing the getting. To wit:
• Got a hit in each of his first five games, including a 5-for-5 performance in a 17-3 win over Kansas City on Sunday — the sixth player ever to have a five-hit game in his first three games.
• Became the first player — not just rookie — since at least 1901 to reach base safely 18 times in the first five games of his career.
• Didn’t swing and miss at a pitch until his sixth game, in the first inning of Wednesday’s game against the Reds at Great American Ball Park. He saw 116 pitches before his first swing and miss — and actually, it was a foul tip, which if caught by the catcher is considered a whiff — the longest streak among players beginning their careers since 2000. Kwan had 39 straight swings without a miss to start his career.
• When he struck out in that at-bat against Cincinnati, it was his first strikeout in 29 plate appearances this season. It was his first “K” since September 26, 2021, with Triple-A Columbus — and that includes spring training.
Kwan, 24, is taking his historic start with a large measure of humility.
“Better to be lucky than good,” says the 5-9, 170-pound Kwan, a fifth-round pick by Cleveland in the 2018 draft. “A lot of balls have been falling in for me. It was a good week, but there was a lot of luck to be had. There will be stretches like that where you’re on the pitching, and other stretches where you don’t see the ball as well or hit it right at people.
“It’s a really small sample size. I try not to put too much stock in it. These things come and go, but it was cool to hear some of the records that were set.”
Those with the Cleveland organization might be more impressed than Kwan is.
“It’s pretty incredible,” Guardians pitcher Aaron Civale told the media. “I don’t think many of us could come up with any words to describe what’s going on. All of us are just enjoying watching him do it.’
“I bet you there are a lot of player development people (from the Cleveland organization) who have their chest out right now, as they should,” manager Terry “Tito” Francona told reporters on Tuesday. “I know we’re only four games in, but every single one of them kept saying, ‘Hey, he’s gonna be OK, man.’ So I know they’re proud.”
Somebody else who is proud: Pat Casey, Kwan’s coach at Oregon State.
“The guy is one hell of a baseball player,” says Casey, who was interviewed Tuesday on MLB Network about his former protege. “Kwannie has a really good feel for the game. He is a guy who truly loves to play the game of baseball. He’s the epitome of what the game should be about.”
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Kwan wasn’t the biggest name on the 2018 Oregon State team that claimed its third College World Series championships since 2006, not with teammates such as Adley Rutschman, Trevor Larnach, Nick Madrigal and Luke Heimlich around. But Kwan was good enough to bat lead-off, play a terrific center field and earn All-Pac-12 honors as a junior.
Though he was in the Beavers’ opening-day lineup as a freshman in 2016, the Fremont, Calif., native was’t an immediate success, hitting only .215 in 65 at-bats. Casey kept pushing, knowing Kwan had the ability to excel at the major-college level. Kwan had a breakthrough sophomore campaign in 2017, batting .331 with a .440 OBP. He was even better as a junior in 2018, hitting .356 (seventh in the Pac-12) with a .463 OBP. His 91 hits that season ranks third on the OSU single-season list (behind Rutschman and Jacoby Ellsbury) despite the fact that Kwan missed most of the College World Series with a hamstring injury.
“His whole deal was, once he started believing that he belonged, he became a player,” Casey says. “I loved his work ethic, his hand-eye coordination, the way he ran the bases. I wanted him to understand he had the freedom to swing the bat. He shrank the strike zone down enough and got into counts that made him good at commanding the zone.”
“It really was about me believing in myself,” Kwan confirms. “I had the tools, but didn’t have a lot self-confidence when I first got there. ‘Case’ was instrumental in propelling me to the next level. He turned me from a boy to a man. I’m truly thankful for his love and coaching.”
It was a bitter pill for Kwan to swallow when he was suffered the injury in the first game of the ’18 CWS.
“It was tough,” he says. “You want to be out there. But we were so deep in the outfield that year — besides Trevor, we had guys like Preston (Jones), Jack (Anderson) and Kyle (Nobach) — it didn’t matter if I was playing. There were plenty of guys available to get the job done.”
Kwan looks back fondly on his three years at Oregon State.
Steven Kwan swings the bat in a Civil War Game against Oregon in Corvallis in 2018 (courtesy Oregon State sports information)
“That’s where I cemented my growth as a person and a ballplayer,” he says. “I got knocked down a lot at first, but the point of that was to get back up. I learned so many lessons. I had such great teammates who have become close friends. I still talk to a lot of the guys pretty much every day. I have so many great memories of my time in Corvallis.”
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Kwan advanced quickly in the minor leagues, and his bat told a story. After signing with the Indians, he hit .346 in 17 games in low A ball in 2018. He hit .280 at Lynchburg in advanced A in 2019 before the pandemic shut down the 2020 season. Kwan made the most of his hiatus, joining a minor league teammate at his home in Georgetown, Texas.
“(The Indians) told us we’d be gone for only two weeks,” Kwan says. “We drove from Arizona to Texas, planning on staying two weeks. We stayed three months. We got to live together, work out, hit and, as much as we could under the circumstances experience Texas. I truly think that molded me into the player I am today.”
When play resumed in 2021, Kwan hit .337 in 51 games with Double-A Akron and .311 in 26 games with Triple-A Columbus despite missing seven weeks with a hamstring injury. Good numbers, but they didn’t make Kwan believe that, heading into 2022 spring training, he was going to make the big-league club.
“Not in my wildest dreams,” he says. “I just wanted to make a really good impression. I figured I’d grind in the minors and then maybe get a call-up around the All-Star break.”
Francona, though, was strongly considering keeping Kwan. And he had done his intel on the former Beaver, viewing interviews Kwan had done with Cleveland officials prior to the draft.
“He has his head screwed on right,” Francona told the media. “He talked about his mom and dad. … we talked to the player development people in spring training. They were all pretty high on his ability to be a good player.”
Kwan hit an “are you kidding?” .469 in 16 spring training games. Francona penciled him into the starting lineup on opening day at Kansas City.
“It was surreal,” Kwan says. “We had gotten to Kansas City on Wednesday. (Francona) says, ‘Hey, you’re starting in right field.’ It was a shock. A very nice surprise.”
He immediately called his parents, Ray and Jane. They flew to Kansas City along with Steven’s siblings, Ryan and Christine. Former Beaver player and coach Tyler Graham came, too, as did Morgan Pearson, former team manager and analytics expert for OSU baseball. They were all on hand in Kauffman Stadium for his major league debut.
Kwan grounded out, walked twice and, in the ninth inning, singled to right for his first major-league hit.
“That was awesome,” he says. “It was freezing that day — 35 degrees with 40-mph winds. My family and friends were joking around — ‘If we had to sit through that game and you didn’t get a hit, we’d have been so mad.’
“That was super fulfilling to have them there. I had a nice little crowd there, being able to share that experience together after the game.”
As MLB’s unofficial player of the week for the first week of the season, Kwan has been a hot commodity with the media.
“It’s been pretty overwhelming,” he says. “I did an interview on MLB Network. I’ve been watching them since I was a little kid. That was cool.”
Kwan hit seventh in the Guardians’ opening-day lineup. Since then, he has been in the two-hole, the spot he hit as a sophomore at OSU between Madrigal and K.J. Harrison.
“I like it,” he says. “It’s familiar for me.”
Kwan, who has played both corner outfield positions for Cleveland, is utilizing his defensive skills, too. Before a sellout crowd of 43,036 for the Reds’ home opener on Tuesday, doubled up Cincinnati’s Kyle Farmer at first base after a flyball out to left field. Kwan has no errors and several nice defensive plays through his first six games.
Says Casey: “He doesn’t have a bazooka, hut he has a good arm, and the exchange from ball to hand is so good, it enhances that ability.”
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Kwan isn’t even settled into Cleveland yet. For the time being, he is living in a hotel. The Guardians are at home for a week, then go on a 10-game road trip. At that point, he will look to rent an apartment or lease a place to live.
The Guardians have sold out 35,000-seat Progressive Field for their home opener Friday against San Francisco.
“I didn’t really think too much about it until we got back to town and heard that news,” he says. “I’m pretty excited.”
Kwan feels he has made a good connection with Francona, who managed the Boston Red Sox to a pair of World Series titles in 2004 and ’07 and was AL Manager of the Year with the Indians in 2013 and ’16.
“He reminds me of ‘Case’ in a way,” Kwan says. “He won’t lie to you. He’ll keep you accountable. He’ll get in your face about stuff. He’s not afraid to tell the truth. He’s well-respected around the league for a reason. It’s been a truly an honor to play for Tito.”
Kwan has a good feeling about the potential of the ’22 Guardians, who are 4-2 with a four-game win streak.
“I think we’re dangerous,” he says. “We got counted out because we’re the youngest team in the league. A lot of people don’t respect us, but I think we have the best player in the league in (third baseman) Jose Ramirez and a great supporting crew. We have some threats in the lineup. The results are not lying. We have some talent here.”
If there is one person who isn’t selling Kwan short, it’s Casey.
“Guys like Steven bring energy to the game,” says Casey, now 63, retired and working as an assistant athletic director at OSU. “That’s what he did for us. Guys loved playing with him. I told (pro) scouts, ‘This kid can play. I don’t care what his size is. He’s not going to fill the scout card out for some people, but he can play baseball.’
“I think he’s going to be in the big leagues for a long time as an every-day player. It’s no surprise to me that as good a manager as Terry Francona recognizes what he has. He will be one of the best in on-base percentage the big leagues. He will play the outfield the same way every day. He never take a day off on you. Such a humble kid. I love the guy, love the way he plays. I’m excited to go see him play.”
Kwan is keeping his personal goals to a minimum.
“I just want to stay healthy and help the team as much as possible,” he says. “Past success is no guarantee of future success. I’ll go back to the drawing boards and get ready for the next game, and then the next one, and so on, and not look too far in the future.”
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