Pleased with injury comeback, pending free agent Ryu Hyun-jin keeps mum on future in MLB

On the verge of hitting free agency for the second time in his major league career, South Korean pitcher Ryu Hyun-jin was careful not to reveal too much about his future plans Wednesday.

Ryu returned home after completing his fourth and likely final season with the Toronto Blue Jays. His four-year, US$80 million contract expired this season, and Ryu will officially become a free agent after the end of the World Series, either at the end of October or early November.

So will Ryu give Major League Baseball (MLB) another shot or return to the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO)?

“I don’t know what to tell you at this point,” Ryu told reporters gathered at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul. “I think we’ll have to wait and see. Only time will tell.”

Ryu signed that four-year pact with Toronto when he hit the open market for the first time in 2019. He was coming off his best season in the bigs, leading the majors with a 2.32 ERA and finishing second in the National League Cy Young Award voting for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Things are much different this time around. Now 36, Ryu was limited to just 17 starts over the past two seasons, missing the second half of 2022 and then the first half of 2023 seasons after undergoing and recovering from a Tommy John elbow operation.

The left-hander pitched to a solid 3.46 ERA in 11 outings this year, going 3-3 while striking out 38 batters in 52 innings.

When asked if he felt he would have had more wins with better luck, Ryu smiled and said, “I just didn’t pitch well enough.”

When Ryu had said at the end of last year that he would try to return to the big league mound by the summer of 2023, it raised more than a few eyebrows. Skeptics doubted Ryu would be able to come back at all, let alone pitch as well as he did, at this point in his career.

“When I left home in December, I said I would be ready to come back in the second half of the season, and I am satisfied that I was able to live up to that word,” said Ryu, who made his 2023 season debut on Aug. 1. “I think I did pretty well this season just by returning from the surgery. I think my velocity will tick up a bit next year, but for now, I think I’ve done pretty well this year.”

Though Ryu doesn’t blow by hitters, he can still be effective with his guile. He was particularly effective with slow curveballs and changeups this year, leading to speculation that he could still command a major league deal even at his advanced age and a recent injury history.

Whether or not he signs another big league deal this winter, Ryu said he remembers the pledge he’d made with fans of his former club, the Hanwha Eagles of the KBO, that he would end his career there.

“I haven’t changed my mind on that front,” said Ryu, who starred for the Eagles from 2006 to 2012. “I’ll absolutely make that happen.”

Ryu said his four years with the Blue Jays “flew by faster than I’d expected.” His first season there was cut short from 162 games to 60 games due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of travel restrictions in Canada, the Blue Jays were forced to play their home games in their minor league facilities in Dunedin, Florida, and Buffalo, New York.

The Blue Jays reached the postseason in two of Ryu’s four seasons there. In 2020, he was the losing pitcher against the Tampa Bay Rays in the deciding Game 2 of an expanded Wild Card Series, after allowing seven runs — only three earned — on eight hits and two homers in 1 2/3 innings.

Ryu never got a shot at his postseason redemption. The Jays qualified for the Wild Card Series this year, but Ryu didn’t make the team’s roster for the showdown against the Minnesota Twins.

Ryu, as the team’s No. 5 starter, wasn’t going to start in the best-of-three series, and with only one career relief appearance, he wouldn’t have been an option in the bullpen, either. The Blue Jays lost the first two games to take a quick exit from the postseason.

“I completely understood the situation,” Ryu said of his exclusion from the postseason. “But I was preparing to pitch in the later rounds after the Wild Card Series. It would have been nice if the team had kept winning, but it didn’t happen.”

Ryu watched helplessly as the Jays dropped Game 2 against the Twins 2-0 after a controversial decision. Toronto starter Jose Berrios got pulled with no out in the fourth inning of what was then a scoreless game. The Blue Jays instead chose left-handed starter Yusei Kikuchi to come out of the pen, but the move backfired as Kikuchi gave up the game’s only two runs in that inning.

“As Berrios himself said, there’s nothing a player can do about that situation. You just have to accept it,” Ryu said. “But from a pitcher’s perspective, it must have been disappointing. It was still early in the game, and he hadn’t allowed any runs at that point. But a player can’t do anything about a situation like that.”

In the midst of the Blue Jays’ postseason drama, Ryu said he kept tabs on the South Korean national team’s run to the gold medal at the Asian Games in China earlier this month. A 2010 Asian Games champion himself, Ryu said South Korea’s young players — the national team was built almost entirely of under-24 players — gave the nation “a valuable gift.”

“These are the players who will be leading the country at international competitions in the future,” Ryu said. “I am sure this gold medal will help them a great deal.”

One of South Korea’s brightest young stars, Kiwoom Heroes outfielder Lee Jung-hoo, could soon join Ryu in the majors. Lee’s KBO club plans to post the 2022 league MVP for interested MLB clubs this offseason. Lee has been scouted heavily in the past couple of years and offers strong bat-to-ball skills with solid defense.

“Everyone knows he’s the best hitter in Korea today,” Ryu said. “If he can find his footing quickly, then I think he’ll be competitive in the majors.”