Besides, his delivery always brings a smile to my face, second only to Mike Fetters.

Kim's 2002 Game Log

His saves came against:
LAD: 5 [92-70] + 1 blown
Col: 3 [73-89] + 1 blown
SF: 3 [95-66]
Atl: 2 [101-59]
Bos: 2 [93-69]
CHC: 2 [67-95]
Cin: 2 [78-84]
Fla: 2 [79-83] + 1 blown
Mon: 2 [83-79]
SD: 2 [66-96]
NYM: 2 [75-86]
Phi: 2 [80-81] + 1 blown
Pit: 2 [72-89]
Bal: 1 [67-95]
Cle: 1 [75-88]
Det: 1 [55-106]
Mil: 1 [56-106] + 1 blown
NYY: 1 [103-58]
Hou: 1 blown [84-78]

Adding that all up, his average save in 2002 came against a team with 80.8 wins - basically .500, which doesn't seem to indicate much of a tendency either way. [His blown saves averaged 77.3, but six is a tiny sample]

As an aside, perhaps the best moment in his career was really June 12, 2002: returning to Yankee Stadium, and this time nailing the save, fanning four in two innings. I also like July 11-13. Three straight saves in Dodger Stadium: the first two, he pitched a perfect ninth with a one-run lead.  

[ My largest problem with Kim will continue to be the fact that he DEMANDED he be a starter. ]

I was looking to see what he was in the minors, but he only played 22 games there before being called up, which is startling. AFAIK, he was a starter before coming to America: he started the semi-final game in the 1998 Asian Games that got him out of the army draft. Now, that's a pressure situation. :-) Can't blame him for wanting to stay in that role.

There's a really good article here on Kim post-2001. It gives some idea of what it was like to be in his shoes, and perhaps helps explain my respect for him.

BK and Durazo I can't really comment on, but there were plenty of quotes from Williams (allegedly, at least - though making direct quotes up would be a stretch, even for the Banana), such as this one:
    "Being there for my kids is everything in my life. This responsibility outweighs anything in my baseball career."

Less well noted is the fact that Walker also vetoed the trade, because we asked him to defer some of his salary. In the long run, perhaps a good thing this trade fell through: more debt is probably the last thing we needed.

[ I personally believe the notion that players "choke", "meltdown", or are "clutch" is pure randomness.]

I disagree: over the long-term, the effects are small, and likely to be concealed by randomness, but I feel they exist. In single games, you can detect them: I'd say the second game in Yankee Stadium was perhaps an example thereof. Throwing your 22-year old closer back into the scene of the crime - after tossing two innings - is asking for trouble, and was bound to widen any cracks in Kim's mental armour.

[ By the way, how come BK didn't "choke" in the '01 divisional series against the Cards? ]

Because he hadn't blown a World Series game the night before? Game 4, I don't regard as any kind of choke: he breezed through the eighth innings, and as you said, I think you've simply got to tip your hat to Tino for the homer. The next night though...I can't even begin to imagine what it was like for Kim on the mound.

I'm trying to find out if there were any previous occasions, when Kim came back the night after blowing a save, to get one, but I can't locate any easy way to tell for 2001. I do see he took the loss in consecutive games on 9/1 and 9/2 vs. San Diego. The second night, he only faced one batter, Ryan Klesko, who smacked a home run. Perhaps a shape of things to come?

I don't reckon there's any argument that psychology (and strengths or weaknesses thereof) play a part in all sports. Players run the whole gamut of mental makeup, and I can't believe, given this variety, that they are all the same at dealing with pressure - especially at the insane level of walking to the mound in Yankee Stadium, having blown a World Series game there the night before.

Baseball is a game of millimeters, the difference on the bat between a two-run homer and an inning-ending double play, and with such neo-randomness, most factors will get lost in the statistical noise over a whole season, and become unmeasurable. I think even skill level can be swamped: take Tony Womack batting .307 last year for St. Louis, 25 points higher than in any of the seven previous seasons. [Hey, it fooled the Yankees!]

My point is that Kim had never been in a situation like that before. It is, of course, impossible to prove statistically he coughed up a psychological hairball on the night. But if ever a situation was a prime candidate for a mental blowout, this was it, and it's entirely credible to me that he did: heaven knows, in his shoes, I probably wouldn't have been able to let go of the ball!

On the other hand (as someone else mentioned in another thread), if Kim hadn't been put in, that might have been just as bad for his confidence, in terms of him no longer being the "go-to" guy. It's certainly possible he'd not have got 36 saves and a 2.04 ERA the following year.

Ah, I think I see. This is really as much a difference in terminology as anything: I don't like the word "random", because of the connotations that results are governed by chance. I much prefer, "influenced by many inputs". :-)

And, I also feel, the relative importance of these inputs varies depending on the occasion. I think mental toughness comes into play for a World Series save in Yankee Stadium, the night after blowing one there, much more than in a meaningless mid-Sept game #147 at Chase vs. the Brewers. But, yes, trying to separate out the many strands and pointing to one as the cause of a single result is probably futile.

[ but it's a great topic, eh? ]

As I think the last 30 comments have proved. :-) I also note how the end of the top 10 has caused much more discussion than the choices towards the top of the list!