(Photo by Gene J. Puskar/AP)

Of all the obscure players to put on the uniform of the Pittsburgh Pirates in recent years, Ka’ai Tom might just be the most obscure name of them all. Blaze Ka’ai Tom, that is. 

With an incredible real name and possibly an even better nickname given to him by fans (“The Flyin’ Hawaiian”), it truly is a shame that his career as a major league player was not able to take off in the way he might have hoped. 

Spanning just 49 Major League Baseball games over his career, Tom played a majority of them as a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates. 

Originally a draft pick of the Cleveland Indians (as they were named at the time) back in 2015, Tom was a fifth round selection out of the University of Kentucky. 

That same season, Ka’ai opened up his baseball career, playing for Cleveland’s affiliate Mahoning Valley in the New York-Pennsylvania League, a form of A- ball. In 66 games for the Mahoning Valley Scrappers, he put up a .283 batting average, with 29 RBIs and 3 home runs. Tom’s consistency at the plate for the Scrappers was one of the few bright spots for this crew in 2015. Mahoning Valley finished dead last in the NYPL. 

The following season, Tom jumped to Single-A, playing for the Lake County Captains of the Midwest League. He didn’t play much, just 28 games, but his batting average jumped to .323. 

In 2017, Tom opened the year playing in the Carolina League for the Lynchburg Hillcats, appearing in 126 games with a .254 average. He also spent some time in the Arizona Fall League for the Glendale Desert Dogs, where albeit in much fewer games, he had a higher average at .275. 

His play earned him a promotion to Double-A for the Akron RubberDucks, getting off to an amazing start for Akron. He was named the Eastern League’s Player of the Month for May. Though he would cool off as the 2018 season went along, Tom still put up alright numbers, including a new personal high of 12 home runs in a season. In addition, he was versatile in the outfield, playing in all three positions. 

Starting out 2019, Tom was still with Akron, playing 81 total games for the RubberDucks, but his play was impressive, and on July 5th, 2019, it earned him a promotion just down the street to the Triple-A Columbus Clippers. 

Up in Triple-A Columbus, Tom tallied 9 home runs and 44 RBIs, adding greatly to his 14 home runs and 42 RBIs from his games in Akron. 

From there, his batting average only jumped higher, from .285 in Akron to .298 in Columbus. He finished the season with the Clippers, who won the 2019 International League championship, including sweeping the Durham Bulls in three games to take the title. 

Tom had successfully been making his way up through Cleveland’s minor league system, but in 2020, an expected change would take place for Tom. 

In December of 2020, the Athletics selected him in the Rule 5 draft, sending him from Cleveland’s system to Oakland’s. 

Kicking off his 2021, Tom excelled in spring training, batting at .321 in 28 at-bats. His time to impress management in spring was severely limited, having to miss the first two weeks recovering from an oblique strain. However, his performance in the time he was available convinced Oakland to name him on the Athletics starting roster for 2021. 

“Man, I was honestly more shocked than anything else,” he said at the time. “It was just kind of like one of those things that’s hard to process.”

Tom was joining an A’s team that had won their division the previous season, during the dramatically reduced 2020 season. 

Ka’ai consistently stressed how grateful and excited he was for this opportunity that he had earned, and the beginning of the 2021 season would carry many firsts for Tom. 

Ka’ai made his MLB debut as a pinch runner, coming in for Mitch Moreland during the A’s 8-1 blowout loss to the Houston Astros. The opening night loss would be a theme for Oakland’s first week of the 2021 season. The losses piled up, and did not look any prettier. They were swept by Houston, losing by a grand total in the series 35-9. 

Things got so bad in the series that Tom, in just his third game, had to pitch an inning; he threw a scoreless inning. Other than that, he did not make much of an impact. 

The following day, against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Tom recorded his first big league hit, an RBI single off of LA’s David Price. 

In the end, it would be one of the few highlights Tom would have in Oakland. That single would be the only hit he would get as a member of the A’s, and after nine games that put his batting average at .063, Oakland decided it was best to move on. 

The A’s placed Tom on waivers on April 19th, and two days later, he was claimed by the Pittsburgh Pirates. A week later, he was activated by the Pirates, and on April 28th, made his debut as a Bucco. He had just one plate appearance in his debut (a walk), but in his first start two days later, Tom was walked three times. 

Tom was always noted for his keen eye at the plate, something that was crucial in his ascent through the minor leagues in Cleveland and Oakland’s systems. 

On May 1st, Tom got his first hit as a Pirate, a single in Pittsburgh’s 12-5 loss to St. Louis. A week later, he would hit his first major league home run, smacking a ball just over the wall to round the bases. 

However, as a whole, Tom was struggling to adjust his game to the big league level. Yes, he was chipping in with the occasional hit, but his batting average was still hovering around .150-.160, and to make matters worse, those walks were not coming in bunches like they used to. 

Towards the end of May, playing the majority of his time in left field, Tom was able to bump up his average a little bit, his highest mark being .177, but that would barely last as it started to trend downwards again. He did add a second home run at the end of the month, which would be the last of his MLB career. 

The Pirates as a whole were suffering greatly. May brought 20 losses to Pittsburgh, sinking the season rather early. 

As May turned to June, Ka’ai still could not get out of his struggles at the plate. The walks were still dropping as the strikeouts rose, and it all boiled down to Tom just being unable to hit a ball and get on base. 

June certainly did not provide a turnaround for the Pirates, and it did not help Tom either. Pittsburgh experienced a ten game losing streak, and Tom’s batting average continued to sink further and further down. 

By the end of June, the Pirates had already amassed 50 losses, an astounding feat for all the wrong reasons, and Tom’s batting average was at .143, also impressive in every negative way. 

On July 1st, Tom would unknowingly play his final game as a Pirate. In that game, he went 0 for 3 with a strikeout. 

He suffered an injury in July, which kept him out of the lineup for a few weeks, and then suffered a setback in his recovery process, keeping him out longer. 

Eventually, even as Tom had recovered, the Pirates decided they had seen enough of the Ka’ai Tom experiment, and on August 16, designated him for assignment. 

Had Tom not been injured and continued playing, he would have shed his Rule 5 draft pick status, which states that a player must be on an MLB team’s active roster for 90 days 

But since he did not, being a Rule 5 draft pick, Tom first had to clear waivers (which he did), and then he had to be offered back to his original team. If he had spent 90 days on the active roster of the A’s, he would have been offered back to them, but since he didn’t, he was instead offered back to Cleveland. 

Tom ended his Pirates career with 11 RBIs, 2 homers, and a .152 batting average. 

Cleveland declined to re-acquire Tom, allowing Pittsburgh to outright assign him to Triple-A Indianapolis. Unfortunately for Tom, his production did not increase a ton while in Indy. 

Tom would play 23 games for the Triple-A Indianapolis Indians, batting a .190 average. 

Finally, on September 20th, the Pirates released Ka’ai, alongside John Nogowski, officially ending his relationship with the organization. 

To open the 2022 season, Tom found a deal with the San Francisco Giants, playing for their Triple-A affiliate in Sacramento. 

Early on in the season, he was briefly called up to the majors for the Giants, filling in after a string of positive Covid-19 tests plagued parts of the Giants lineup. 

He got one at bat for the Giants, appearing in an April 29th game, before being sent back down to Sacramento. He played 78 total games for the River Cats in 2022, recording a .229 batting average with 10 homers and 47 RBIs. 

Despite his increase in performance from the previous year, the Giants organization released Tom in August. 

His MLB career, to this point, spanned just 49 total games. Despite his ascent through the minor leagues and his good eye at the plate, for whatever reason it just didn’t work at the major league level.