The Los Angeles Dodgers say they are looking forward to watching Ryu Hyun-jin pitch for them after signing the top South Korean left-hander to a six-year deal worth a reported US$36 million on Sunday.
“We are excited to welcome Ryu Hyun-jin to Los Angeles and the United States, continuing the tradition of Korean pitchers with the Dodger organization,” Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti said in a statement. “The Dodgers continue to show the commitment to signing players from Asia and other international areas where baseball is played at the highest levels. We are looking forward to watching Ryu pitch for the franchise.”
The Dodgers confirmed they had inked Ryu to a six-year deal, although their statement did not mention the US$36 million reported by mlb.com.
The Ryu deal beat the afternoon deadline to end the 30-day exclusive negotiating window that the Dodgers had won by posting a fee of US$25.7 million, which will now go to Ryu’s South Korean team, the Hanwha Eagles.
That was reportedly the third-largest posting fee for such negotiating rights, following Japanese pitcher Yu Darvish’s worth US$51.7 million and his compatriot Daisuke Matsuzaka’s, worth US$51.1 million.
The Boston Red Sox eventually gave gave Matsuzaka a six-year, US$52 million contract. The Texas Rangers inked Darvish to a six-year, US$60 million contract.
Ryu has spent his entire seven-year professional career in South Korea, compiling a 98-52 record with a 2.80 earned run average.
He also helped South Korea to a gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics by going 2-0 with a 1.04 ERA in two starts.
Ryu was the first player to win the Most Valuable Player and Rookie of the Year honors in the same season in South Korea, when he went 18-6. He averaged 15 wins a season until this year, when the Eagles finished last and he had only nine wins, along with a 2.66 ERA.
Word that the Dodgers had reached agreement with Ryu came amid reports that they were close to reaching terms with prized free agent pitcher Zack Greinke.
USA Today reported that Greinke and the Dodgers had agreed on a six-year, US$147 million deal, subject to Greinke passing a physical exam.
If that deal goes through, Ryu would potentially be joining a starting pitching rotation that includes two Cy Young Award-winners in Clayton Kershaw and Greinke, along with top hurlers Chad Billingsley and Josh Becket.
When he makes his Dodgers debut, Ryu will become the 14th South Korean to play in Major League Baseball and the fourth to play for the Dodgers after Choi Hee-seop, Seo Jae and Park Chan-ho.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later