3 years agoToronto Blue Jays starting pitcher Hyun Jin Ryu struggled in his second season in Canada, especially after the All-Star break, where he posted a 5.50 ERA and 1.31 WHIP. He finished the year with 14 wins, a 4.37 ERA, 20.4 K%, and 1.22 WHIP over 169 innings. Ryu ditched the sinker, leaving him with a five-pitch mix. He upped the fastball usage to 35.9% from 24.1% in 2020, despite a .490 xSLG and .527 xSLG against the pitch in 2020 and 2021, respectively, and just fourth percentile spin rate. Two of Ryu's previous best offerings, changeup and cutter, suffered last year. The changeup's Whiff% went from 30.6% two seasons ago to 25.3% in 2021, and its HardHit% increased to 31.6%. His cutter was worse, losing 10.4% on its Whiff% (19.3% last season), was hit hard 39.3% of the time, and had its career-worst horizontal movement. Altogether, Ryu owned a 41.6 HardHit%, 8.5 Barrel%, and his worst K-rate since 2016 is a consequence of a career-worst 22.6 Whiff%, a 9.7 SwStr%, and 71.9 O-Contact%. His ERA should deflate a bit, but his 14.1% HR/FB and .295 BABIP don't stick out, and his 4.45 xERA suggests he didn't get many bad breaks. The Blue Jays will be competitive, so double-digit wins won't be difficult to reach. However, Ryu's thrown just 180 innings twice in eight seasons in the majors. With him showing signs of decline at age 34, a 22 K%, an ERA below 3.50 and WHIP below 1.20 will be tough to come by. His ADP is just 191, but even that is too high of a price for this ageing arm.--Spencer Seguin