How Cleveland's Steven Kwan became the star of MLB opening weekend

By Jake Mintz
FOX Sports MLB Writer

Steven Kwan came out of nowhere — but only if you weren’t paying attention.

The 24-year-old outfielder was the biggest story of opening weekend. On Monday afternoon, "Steven Kwan" was the fourth-highest trending topic nationwide on Twitter behind "The G.O.A.T.," "Britney Spears" and "#NationalPetDay."

In the first few days of MLB’s return to action, the Red Sox and Yankees played a tight, competitive series, Max Scherzer made his return to National Park, Shohei Ohtani shined against the Astros, the Braves got their World Series rings, and Vlad Jr. hit the longest home run of his career. But all anybody can talk, post or tweet about is a 5-foot-9 rookie on the Cleveland Guardians.

And for good reason.

In the team’s four-game set against Kansas City, Kwan became the first player in the live ball era (since 1920) to reach base 15 times in his first four career games. He emerged from the first big-league series of his life with a comical .692 batting average and a hilarious 1.789 OPS.

Hitting isn’t supposed to be this easy, and honestly, it won’t be for Kwan moving forward. Nobody hits .692 forever — not even in the movies. Big-league pitchers will adjust and find his weaknesses. The natural laws of baseball will swing the pendulum back toward equilibrium, and Kwan’s batting average will eventually start with a three or a two instead of a six.

But it will probably be a three because the left-handed-hitting Kwan is more than just a flash in the pan. Scouts and prospect prognosticators agree that Cleveland’s breakout star has elite, top-of-the-charts bat control and a supernatural sense of the strike zone. Those traits enabled him to post a microscopic 3.3% swinging strike rate in his rise up the system, good for second in the minors behind his former Oregon State teammate, Cubs second baseman Nick Madrigal.

"I remember when I was younger, every time I struck out, I would want to cry," Kwan told FOX Sports hours before he went 5-for-5 on Sunday. "So I think I just told myself, 'I don't like to cry, so I just won't strike out.'"

Before Kwan was a trending topic, he was an OSU Beaver, and before he was a Beaver, he was a scrawny, twitchy kid from the East Bay. Nothing about the scouting report or the batting practice video on his Perfect Game page screams big leaguer. 

But former Oregon State pitching coach and current Texas A&M top assistant Nate Yeskie saw something special right away.

"I was the guy that recruited him," Yeskie told FOX Sports. "I'd seen him a couple of times. I asked our outfield coach if he’d seen him. He goes ‘Yeah, you like him?' I say, ‘Yeah, I just saw him play the s--- out of it for about four straight days.’ And he played against some of our top recruits and did real well in a tournament in San Diego. I thought he would be Dave Roberts. That's what I compared him to."

At Oregon State, Kwan was part of a historically good recruiting class that included Madrigal (first round, fourth overall to the White Sox), Trevor Larnach (first round, 20th overall to the Twins) and Cadyn Grenier (first round, 37th overall to the Orioles). He also played alongside Drew Rasmussen (sixth round to the Brewers, now in Tampa’s rotation) and Adley Rutschman (first overall to the Orioles, currently the No. 1 prospect in baseball).

For Kwan, seeing the sheer talent of that group when he first got to campus was intimidating and led to some serious self-doubt.

"It was confidence issues and imposter syndrome," he revealed. "Our recruiting class, man, I remember it being the fifth-best in the nation. We had Madrigal, Larnach, all these big recruits from the Pacific Northwest. And then I'm there thinking, 'I don't think I belong here. I think I might have pulled a fast one on the coaches. I don't think they really know who I am.'"

That lack of confidence led to a disappointing freshman season for Kwan, as he hit just .215 in 77 plate appearances.

"The first couple of series I did terribly," he remembered "And I kind of told myself, like, 'Yeah, what I thought was right. I don't belong here. I'm getting exposed now.' So it was really like a big shock."

That’s where Tyler Graham came in.

Now, unless you’ve been a die-hard fan of the Arizona Diamondbacks, you probably don’t know that name. But Graham played pro ball for almost a decade, getting a sip of espresso in a 10-game, two-plate-appearance stint with Arizona in 2010. A few years after hanging up his spikes in 2014, Graham returned to Oregon State, where he had played college ball, to become the program’s director of player development. 

During Kwan's rough freshman year, Graham sat him down and explained that his swing needed a complete restructuring. 

"'It might be ready in six months, but you’ve got to start from scratch,'" Kwan recalled Graham telling him. "And I was already pretty much at rock-bottom. So I was like, 'It can't get any worse. Let’s do it.'"

Graham talked to FOX Sports on the phone Sunday after flying back to the West Coast from Kansas City, where he got to see Kwan’s remarkable debut in person. 

"He went to work right away," Graham said. "And he was the guy that was in the cage every single day. I mean, he never, ever missed a day. He's probably one of the most coachable kids I've ever worked with. But the biggest thing was that Steven was always curious. He was smart enough to know that he needed to put in the work if he wanted to get better."

For Graham and Kwan, the first thing that needed fixing was the mental approach. All the negative energy and self-doubt and imposter syndrome needed to go if the swing were going to improve. And that’s exactly what happened.

"I think it started with the belief in himself," Graham said. "At that point, he didn’t have any belief in himself. The biggest thing was convincing Steven that he was the best, no matter what the results were, and I think [head] coach [Pat] Casey had a lot to do with that as well.

"Mechanically, it was all about slowing Steven down just so he could start seeing the ball even better. A lot of the stuff was without swinging, a lot of lane-training work. Just throwing balls and balls out of the machine without swinging, just working on his timing."

"I lived with him for three years," former OSU pitcher and current Giants farmhand Bryce Fehmel told FOX Sports. "Watching him work was something else. I remember the older we got, the more time Kwan spent in the cages. I don’t remember him being a big video guy of himself, but always watching video on other players and learning any way he could."

Those changes paid immediate dividends in Kwan’s sophomore year — to the tune of a .331 average and .440 OBP as Oregon State made a run to the College World Series. His junior year was even better. Casey put Kwan into the leadoff spot, ahead of Madrigal, Larnach and Rutschman. Kwan hit .351 while walking 50 times with 18 strikeouts, and the Beavers won the College World Series.

But all the while, Kwan wasn’t considered the same caliber of pro prospect as his first-round teammates. That was mostly because of his notable lack of power; Kwan hit just three home runs in college. Still, Cleveland’s Northwest area scout, Conor Glassey, formerly a writer at Baseball America, could see that Oregon State’s pesky leadoff hitter was a diamond in the rough.

"He was overshadowed a bit by those other guys," Glassey remembered. "But the more you watched that team play, Kwan just kind of grew on you with everything he did. Then, once I started to get to know him, once I talked to him and learned more about his story, I realized he'd worked really, really hard to get to where he is now."

To Glassey, Kwan’s freshman struggles were actually a good thing, an indication that adversity was something he could handle. "A lot of these guys, you worry about how they're going to handle failure," Glassey explained. "And with Steven, the fact that he’d already been through it was a plus in my book."

But there was still the issue of Kwan’s paltry power output. At the time, Graham understood it would be an issue at the pro level and explained the situation to Glassey, who relayed that conversation to FOX Sports. 

"I remember Tyler was like, ‘I promise you he's gonna hit the ball with impact once he leaves here. He's just doing what he's asked to do now: Get on base and hit singles,'" he said.

Over time, Glassey realized Kwan was a real dude. And unsurprisingly, Cleveland’s analytical draft model loved him as well, thanks to his low strikeout numbers and impressive statistical output. That was enough for the Guardians to take him in the fifth round of the 2018 draft. 

And while Kwan hasn’t turned into a slugger by any means, Graham was certainly right about his ability to learn how to impact the baseball. In 2021, Kwan homered 12 times in 341 plate appearances, a huge uptick from his first two pro seasons and his college career.

How’d that happen? Enter Cleveland Director of Player Development Rob Cerfolio, who, along with the organization’s staff, helped Kwan develop a more assertive approach at the plate.

"He showed up and already had this elite skill, his contact ability," Cerfolio said. "So we told him, ‘We know you can make contact, but let’s learn how to pick our spots when we really want to drive and do damage to the baseball.'"

Yet again, Kwan’s work ethic came into play, as Cleveland made additional changes to his stance and swing. Adjustments take time, effort and commitment — which Kwan delivered in buckets. You can clearly see in the side-by-side that Kwan’s starting position is now much more upright, his hands are much closer to his body, and his leg kick is more pronounced.

Kwan’s bat control wasn’t his only elite tool. Every single person who spoke about him talked about his makeup, his character, his perseverance, his love for the sport and his kindness toward others.

"It's so easy to talk about the kid," Cerfolio said. "He just kind of does everything right. And the way that he treats people and goes about his business makes it really fun to see the success that he's having early on his major-league career."

When asked what he’d enjoyed about his big-league experience thus far, Kwan was incredibly genuine. 

"Everyone is so friendly, honestly," he said. "Like, I couldn't believe I was talking to [Salvador Perez] at home plate."

But for Kwan, his true welcome-to-the-bigs moment came from the food.

"It dawned on me when we had our pregame spread," he said. "I'm sitting down next to one of our bullpen guys, and we have completely different meals. I had sweet potatoes, fruit, some fish and some chicken. He had pulled pork, dirty rice, some cantaloupe and some grilled steak. 

"I was like, 'I didn't even know there were this many options. And we're on the road!'"

Kwan is certainly aware of his budding niche celebrity, even if he doesn't totally understand it.

"I try to stay off of Twitter," he admitted. "But I have buddies who have been sending me ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ stuff with my face on it. And I feel like kind of a fraud because I’ve never watched ‘Guardians of the Galaxy.’ It’s all pretty cool. My brother is also on some Reddit pages, and he shows me some stuff, too. So it's pretty funny. I don't know if I entirely get it, but it’s cool."

While Kwan’s fame on the internet is a relatively new development, he has been a force in the minors for years. In fact, after I tweeted that I was working on a Kwan story, a current minor-league pitcher reached out unprompted to let me know that Kwan was "an absolute nightmare to face. It’s a great day when you see him not in the lineup. Dude just hits."

Hit he does, hit he has and hit he will. The rise and reign of Steven Kwan is a testament to his abilities, his work ethic and, most importantly, his trust in those willing to support him. 

It’s a story of recruiting, scouting, player development and a uniquely coachable player all working seamlessly together to transform a slight, speedy teenager into a major-league hitting machine.

Jake Mintz is the louder half of @CespedesBBQ and a baseball writer for FOX Sports. He’s an Orioles fan living in New York City, and thus, he leads a lonely existence most Octobers. If he’s not watching baseball, he’s almost certainly riding his bike. You can follow him on Twitter at @Jake_Mintz.