Another day and another international starting pitcher PitchFx post. This time let’s focus on Korea’s Hyunjin Ryu. Appropriately, Ryu is wearing number 99 during the tournament to add an extra layer of mystique, Dennis Rodman/Ron Artest style.
Not to be confused with fellow countryman and San Diego Padres starter Jae Kuk Ryu, this Ryu is a 6’2” lefty with a birth date of March 25th, 1987. That means he’s nearly 22-years-old and looked considerably more impressive than Araldis Chapman. For one, Ryu featured a more consistent release point with his pitches and displayed a better sense of control, issuing a walk in two and two-thirds innings pitched. Ryu did allow five hits, all singles, and struck three hitters out.
Ryu’s arsenal featured a fastball that broke in to lefties while sitting 89-91 and topping out at 93 miles per hour. A change-up, slider, curveball, and splitter. Let’s look at his movement chart:
Ryu’s fastball varies in speed enough with his splitter and change-up to cause some recognition issues for batters. Ryu’s curveball and slider break away from lefties as you would expect, and his curve really dives off the table at a – by comparison – slow-moving 75 miles per hour.
Again, Ryu’s potential MLB status is hardly predictable. I suppose there’s a chance down the road, but that’s some time away so there’s no sense in penciling him in as someone’s ace in 2010.
You Aren't a FanGraphs Member
It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.
5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.
8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.
9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.
10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!
We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.
Dennis Rodman/Ron Artest mystique isn’t really something to shoot for, is it?
It is If Ryu wants to be known as insanely talented and mentally insane.