I’d like to introduce you to Hyun-Jin Ryu, fantasy ace. Before you discount what seems like a stretch of a statement, consider that Ryu has been arguably the best pitcher in all of baseball in 2019, and we’re approaching the midpoint of the season. The argument for a small sample size is no longer one that applies. Ryu has been exceptional on the mound for quite a while now actually, but due to a cornucopia of factors: primarily his overstated injury history, his being 32 when the season began, and the amount of talent masking him in the Dodgers rotation, he’s not been viewed like the star he is.
Is Ryu an Injury Risk?
Ryu’s injury-prone label is greatly exaggerated, seemingly rooted in the narrative more so than in stats. With the exception of when he missed almost the entire season in 2016, his innings totals since 2014 (including playoffs) have been: 192 (2014), 158 (2015), 126.2 (2017), and 101.1 (2018). The majority of these injuries in recent years have been lower body ones as well, and while of course, it’s better to not be hurt at all, if a pitcher has to be hurt, it’s preferable for a pitcher to keep them far away from the shoulder and arm. When it comes to discussing the injury risk, another factor to consider is just how incredibly efficient Ryu has been so far this season, after already having been one of the more efficient pitchers in the game last year anyway. He’s regularly going deep in games, but because he’s averaging a touch over 14 pitches per inning (14.21), he’s not laboring through difficult pitch counts every night.
Ryu more often than not isn’t asked to throw over 99 pitches, (only six starts with more than 99 pitches out of 15 total), and while there are dissenting opinions on how to try to preserve pitcher’s health, it remains true that the most difficult pitches for a pitcher occur whenever he approaches his theoretical point of overexertion. It makes sense, of course, most pitchers see their average fastball speed decrease as their pitch count rises. The Dodgers proactively keep Ryu on a relative pitch limit to ensure he is less likely to have his tank run out entirely, and his low pitch counts in each inning allow him to still be successful.
Ryu’s impressive ability to just entirely stop issuing walks is part of what has helped him to be so efficient. His 90:6 K:BB ratio (works out to 15.00) is not only on pace to be the best in the majors by a comfortable margin, but would also be the best of all time by a comfortable amount over the current record held by Phil Hughes at 11.63.
How Is Ryu Doing This?
Ryu will likely never get out of the shadow of Clayton Kershaw in LA, even as Kershaw evolves, and Ryu also isn’t any spring chicken which makes him less buzzy than budding young ace Walker Buehler. But Ryu is arguably comparably talented to both of them, and just about all of the underlying numbers back it up too. Ryu’s arsenal is deep but buoyed by his top two offerings: He’s armed with a fastball and changeup both graded extremely well by Fangraphs at 11.5 wFB and 13.4 wCH, respectively. He has a cutter that he added a couple of years grading out as 3.5 wCT, and a passable slider and curveball grading at -0.4 wSL and -0.9 wCB. Let’s take a quick look at how impressive he makes some of them look.
Here’s Ryu making sure Josh Donaldson knows that his cutter has been good this year:
https://gfycat.com/blaringpaltryaoudad
Here Ryu makes one of the best pure hitters of the past decade look foolish on a… 92 mph fastball in the zone:
https://gfycat.com/homelysolidazurewingedmagpie
And here’s Ryu dotting that changeup down and away to Pirates’ rookie Brian Reynolds:
https://gfycat.com/craftyadolescentarrowana
When a pitcher doesn’t issue free passes, it forces the opposing offense to rely on putting the ball in play to score. Unfortunately for opposing hitters, Ryu has been one of the more difficult pitchers in the game to square up. Despite a fastball that has an unimpressive spin rate and mediocre velocity (even when you consider that it’s coming from a lefty), Ryu ranks well in a host of metrics. Per Baseball Savant, he is in the bottom 12% in both fastball velocity and spin rate, but is slightly above average in the curveball spin rate and K%, both of which place him in the 59th percentile.
Ryu really starts to stand out when you look at how impossible he makes it barrel him up. Per Baseball Savant, he’s suppressing hits to the tune of a .260 batting average on balls in play against him, and in an age of the juiced ball he limits balls leaving the park, he’s at only .64 HR/9. He’s backing them up with his numbers under the hood too, as shown by ranking in the 93rd percentile in exit velocity allowed, and in the 88th percentile in hard-hit percentage.
While it’s tempting to scream regression, especially when considering an unsustainable 89.0% strand rate, Ryu has a lot of room to come back to the mean from his current microscopic 1.29 ERA while still being quite good. His xWOBA (93rd percentile), xSLG (84th percentile), and xBA (60th percentile) are all either above average or elite, and his 2.50 FIP, 2.91 xFIP, and 3.32 SIERA are all sterling as well. Understanding that Ryu has turned in ERAs under all three of the FIP, xFIP, and SIERA figures in both 2017 and 2018 already, it’s very reasonable to think he’s not going to stop doing that now.
Where Do We Go From Here?
It’s hard to do, but it’s time to start viewing Ryu as the elite starter he is. His ERA hasn’t started with a “2” since 2017, and if he really is a true talent 2.00-2.50 ERA guy who will offer strong WHIP numbers from not walking anybody, while also holding a decent strikeout rate, he’s going to continue to shove. The Dodgers’ offense is a great help as well, as he should enjoy some of the strongest run support in baseball.
Ultimately, Ryu is still a pitcher, and therefore more injury-prone than a position player. He is also on the MLB’s most notorious team for creating phantom DL stints because of a ludicrously deep rotation. If I had to wager, I think what the Dodgers would like to do with Ryu is find a second, short phantom-IL stint in the next couple of weeks, probably right before the All-Star break. This way they can give him a break for a week or two in order to keep him as fresh as possible into August and September’s push, while also making sure there isn’t temptation or pressure to have him throw meaningless pitches in the All-Star game, since he will be a good bet to be on the NL’s staff (if not the potential starter). His next start is scheduled for this Thursday in Colorado, and if he struggles at Coors Field the same way just about all other starters have, it could be a perfect chance to make up a fake injury.
The Dodgers have already gotten creative in finding ways to help Ryu recover and stay fresh, pushing him back one scheduled day last week from Friday to Saturday. If they can get a little luck avoiding any real injury, and Ryu maintains his dominant efficiency and underlying metrics, it is going to be entirely unsurprising when Ryu finishes 2019 as a true Cy Young contender, and one of the elite fantasy aces as well.
(Photo by Adam Davis/Icon Sportswire)
Ryu is literally leading in every poll or predictor that I have seen. I don’t think you are going out on any limbs in your first paragraph. Heck, I read something about Ryu leading the Cy at MLB.com yesterday which is about the least insightful place on the internet unless you know, they are talking about Bryce Harper’s hair or Kris Bryant’s eyes or that kind of (TMZ) thing. The only limb I think you are out on is the one where you are understating his injury history. I hope that the injuries are all gone, but being on the wrong side of 30 doesn’t help.
On a less related note, I don’t think LAD ever has a ludicrously deep rotation. They end up short on SP every year for a chunk of the season. Their SP are always battling injuries, missing chunks of the season and are they are generally spent by the time playoffs come around. Whatever they are doing isn’t working lol… they just have talent to spare and it covers up their flaws – they get their money out of Kenley! The lack of real depth in the rotation is why they end up shuffling through starters so much and having to manage innings so tightly. They typically have 5/6 guys that are all pretty questionable and while 6 sounds like an adequate number is really isn’t. its even worse when you consider that they don’t make up for it in bullpen depth. Hill, Stripling, Maeda will never be there for a full season. Kershaw is a wild card at this point. That leaves them with WB – who I hope is healthy forever… and Ryu who is typically a coin flip to give them 100 IP. I don’t count playoffs – including playoffs is a different context – its a longer season and most players don’t even get the opportunity. LAD’s depth is on the offensive side and general versatility of those players, not pitching IMO. They are going to need Ryu to pitch his best innings in the playoffs as Hill sounds like he could be done. The race in the West is as less competitive that it has ever been and they will be measured by their playoff run as they have the past three years. Not sure what that means for Ryu as he has helped them to secure the division already, but his work is just beginning if he is going to be a legit ace. In my book an ace is reliable. You can be great and unreliable – see James Paxton.
Hello Kraken, thanks for reading!
You make an excellent point that at this stage, I do think that just about everyone is on board with Ryu having been really good. My message I wanted to convey was to show why he has been so strong, while also pushing back on the idea that he’s probably not somebody who can be counted on as a force moving forward too and that he really isn’t a sell-high IMO. As for the rest of the LAD rotation, it certainly looks a little less deep with Rich Hill for a while, but when at full strength I’m not sure any of the 30 teams outside of maybe the Astros can top Kershaw, WB, Ryu, Maeda, Stripling, Urias, Hill, plus the guys in the minors on the periphery like today’s starter Tony Gonsolin. I’m speculating that Ryu may get dinged a little tomorrow on the road against the Rockies, just because Coors is pretty much undefeated. If he does, I could see it leading to some saying to get out from under Ryu, but I do think even if he does struggle AND gets the inevitable phantom-IL stint, that he’s still someone who I’d rank among the top 5 or so at SP ROS. You’re on to something to worry about them saving him in the final weeks though, I think if they do indeed lock up the division with a lot of time to spare that he’ll be rested then too.
Side note – I’m super disappointed that somebody already wrote up Harper’s hair before I could! Gotta be quicker than that next time lol
Nice article! Loved Ryu preseason and love the post-hype breakout.
Can you explain your thesis? In other words, how is he suppressing so much contact?
I’m glad you enjoyed the article Dan, thanks for reading! Ryu’s doing a significant number of little things well, but this season is notable for him among his most recent few in one subtle way that probably is helping a lot – through his first 99 innings he is among the best in baseball at preventing hitters to barrel him up (3.6%), and also has made a stride forward in limiting the launch angle from hitters he’s facing to just 5.3. For reference, the average barrel rate allowed in MLB so far this year is 6.3% and the average launch angle in baseball this year is 11.0 on a ball put in play.
Ryu probably can’t keep being that dominant all year, these would both be career-high numbers for him, but in an age of the juiced ball where everyone is a power hitter, his ability to generate weak contact with poor launch angles will do wonders for him. Even factoring in some regression toward his career averages, he’s going to continue to be a difficult pitcher to barrel up and/or take deep.
SHOTS FIRED! SHOTS FIRED! Duck Pollack, DUCK!!!