An eight-year contract totaling 17 billion won. That’s the price for Ryu’s return to Korean baseball.
“I strongly rejected a multi-year contract to fulfill my promise to return to Hanwha when I have the strength,” Ryu explained. Even if it’s less than the 10 million dollars (about 13.3 billion won) per year that his agent Boras wanted, it’s still a “huge difference” from his salary in Korea.
Still, it’s the highest and longest contract in Korean baseball history, surpassing the likes of Yang Ji Kwang-hyun and Lee Dae-ho. The baseball world’s attention is bound to be focused on Ryu’s performance this year.
It’s unlikely that he’ll have the same powerful 150-kilometer fastball and overwhelming stamina to last 200 innings as he did in his prime. Even Ryu himself said, “I think I should throw more than 150 innings.”
His Tommy John (elbow ligament reconstruction) surgery in 2022, 바카라사이트 his declining fastball velocity, and the fact that hitters in the KBO are better than they were 12 years ago are some of the reasons why some in the baseball world are talking about Ryu’s potential struggles. Can Ryu make people forget his 37-year-old age?
According to MLB stats site Baseball Servant,
Ryu’s average fastball (four-seam) velocity in 2023 is 88.6 mph (about 142.6 kilometers). That’s down from 2018 (90.3 mph), when he was on the World Series mound, and 2019 (90.7 mph), when he led the league in ERA. It’s also the lowest of Ryu’s entire career. It’s in the bottom 2% of pitchers who pitched in the big leagues last year.
However, since returning to the big leagues last August, Ryu has appeared in 11 games, going 3-3 with a 3.46 ERA. Baseball is not a game of fastball velocity. It’s a game of timing for the hitter and timing for the pitcher.
The value of a fastball is a combination of many things, not just velocity, but movement and delivery. Ryu’s fastball is rated above the major league average (46%) with a knife-like delivery. It’s just that his changeup, his main weapon, hasn’t gotten the same recognition.
Ko Young-pyo, who signed a five-year, 10.7 billion won extension with KT in January, is four years younger than Ryu, born in 1991. Despite the differences in left-handedness and sidearm, they are similar in that they both have exquisite pitches and a changeup that is often overlooked.
He went 12-7 with a 2.78 ERA in 174⅔ innings last year.
He was arguably the best native pitcher in the game. However, his fastball only averaged 134.6 mph (per Statcast).
In the last three years, Ko has pitched 523⅔ innings (the most in the league), won 10 games (36) in three consecutive years, and has a 2.99 ERA. His presence has also been felt on the national team and in the postseason.
Ryu Hyun-jin is a pitcher who has been known for his fastball and pinpoint delivery. In 2012, his last season in the KBO, he had a fresh shoulder that could throw a 153-kilometer fastball in a game, but even then, 사설 토토사이트 his average fastball velocity was around 143 kilometers.
While Ryu is confident that he’ll be in good enough shape to start on Opening Day, he also mentioned the possibility of his velocity increasing in the future, saying, “After Tommy John surgery, your arm gets more comfortable in the second or third year.” That’s why expectations for the “monster that came back” are heating up.