Los Angeles Dodgers: Why Hyun-Jin Ryu won’t be a Dodger in 2020
By Jason Reed
1. The Los Angeles Dodgers are not going to pay Ryu’s market value
I know what you are thinking. Why should one of the largest and most profitable teams in Major League Baseball not spend money on a reigning Cy Young candidate when they have a ton of money to spend? It is a valid question, but when you break it down, it makes sense.
This is not Andrew Friedman’s front office being stingy with the money, not at all. This will simply be the case of the Dodgers understanding that Ryu is not worth what some team is willing to pay him this offseason.
If he wins the Cy Young, I would expect Ryu’s contract to be in the range of four to five years for $100-125 million. Even that seems low for a Cy Young winner, but there are factors.
Ryu is 32 years old (he’s older than Kershaw!) and has a troubling injury past. He practically missed half of his current contract with the Dodgers with injury and had a great 2018 season cut short as well. Even this year, he suffered some bumps along the way.
That drives his price down but pitching is such a premium that there will be desperate teams that will be willing to pay that price for Ryu, and that is where the Dodgers are going to back out.
This Dodger regime is not known for committing long term to a player, especially a player of Ryu’s age. I think the absolute max that the Dodgers are willing to give Ryu is $60 million over three years, which is slightly more than they gave Rich Hill.
The only hope to sign him on that contract is that he either does not care about the money or there are no desperate teams willing to go higher, which is a stretch.