Can Ryu make it?

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Ryu Hyun-jin takes part in fielding drills during the Cactus League’s spring training at the team’s facility in Glendale, Ariz., Thursday. / Reuters-Yonhap

New Dodger lefty has to prove he’s starter material

By Kim Tong-hyung

Ryu Hyun-jin is supposed to be Korea’s next great baseball export; hefty expectations of a man whose body testifies to binges on fried chicken and beer rather than disciplined workouts.

Upon his arrival at spring training after signing a six-year, $36 million deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers in December, the 26-year-old lefty pitcher has answered more questions about his weight and smoking habits than what he does on the mound.

Looking gassed and finishing last in the team’s morning run on consecutive days clearly didn’t help with his first impression. Los Angeles Times journalist Dylan Hernandez quipped, ``this much is already clear about Hyun-Jin Ryu: He won’t be competing in the Los Angeles Marathon any time soon.’’

Ryu, who delighted Korean journalists with his self-deprecating humor over the years, put the blame on his teammates.

``I think the players here don’t respect their trainers enough,’’ he told Korean reporters in at the team’s training grounds in Arizona.

``I am sure the trainer told us to finish the course in 36 seconds, but everyone else was cutting it in 26 seconds.’’

And no, he isn’t apologizing for his love for cigarettes.

``Is smoking a crime?’’ he asked before downplaying the concerns about his conditioning.

``There is a difference between the endurance you need for running and the endurance you need for pitching,’’ he claimed.

The comments reflect the poise and tenacity Ryu consistently showed in his seven years of Korean professional baseball, a league he dominated right out of high school as a Hanwha Eagles rookie in 2006. But Major League Baseball could prove to be a nerve-rattling experience.

Ryu perhaps deserves the benefit of the doubt over conditioning as he always finished among the leaders in innings pitched in the Korean league expect for the injury-riddled 2011 season.

And baseball is a rare sport where professional athletes can look like the jolly man at the pub: Exhibit A is David Wells, the big, former New York Yankees lefty who once claimed he pitched his historic perfect game while suffering from a hangover.

The more relevant question is how Ryu at his best will translate in the planet’s highest level of baseball competition.

With the duo of Cy Young hopefuls in Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke leading a stacked starting rotation for the Dodgers, Ryu obviously won’t be required to do the heavy lifting he did for the Eagles.

But with a $36 million contract ― not including the $25.7 million the Dodgers spent for the rights to negotiate with him under the league’s posting system ― it would be a disappointment if Ryu fails to land in the team’s five-man starting rotation. And it could be argued that his stuff is more suitable for the bullpen than as a starter.

In baseball, projecting whether a fly ball becomes a hit or out basically remains a crap shoot. The most reliable projectors of a pitcher’s success therefore are the rates of the ground balls and strike outs he induces.

Ryu led the Korean league in strikeouts several times, thanks to his effective fastball-changeup combination. But considering the superior bat speed and plate coverage of Major League hitters, Ryu’s fastball, which tops out at 145-kilometers-per-hour with little movement, may not qualify as an above-average pitch.

Ryu’s changeup seems good enough to be relevant in any league, but a changeup without a threat of a fastball isn’t much of a threat at all.

A decline in strikeout rates will be alarming for Ryu, who even in Korea, struggled to induce groundballs from good right handed hitters. In going 9-9 with a 2.66 ERA for the Eagles last year, Ryu struck out 157 right-handed hitters compared to 53 lefties. But he gave up nearly three times as more hits to right handed hitters and the gap is even more dramatic when considering extra-base hits only.

Of course, 182-innings are a small sample size and the eight-team Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) league didn’t exactly boast a wealth in quality left-handed hitters in the past few seasons. Still, Ryu’s left-right split has been a consistent trend throughout his career and his lack of a quality breaking ball has hurt him frequently against right-handed hitters.

It would be an accomplishment if Ryu eventually establishes himself as a third or fourth starter, which he says is his goal. And it’s easy to understand why running out of the bullpen is a scary thought for him.