Investment in Hyun-Jin Ryu a sign of changing times for Blue Jays – Sportsnet.ca

TORONTO — Hyun-Jin Ryu had only been in his new manager’s office at Rogers Centre for a few minutes before Charlie Montoyo was saddling up in front of his bongos, welcoming the new ace of his pitching staff as only he can:

Taking his cue, Ryu picked up a pair of maracas and joined the party as his wife, Korean broadcaster Ji-Hyun Bae, and his agent, Scott Boras, looked on smiling. Funny thing about that moment: it was actually Boras’ idea for Montoyo to get behind the drums and hold the impromptu concert. Imagine that. MLB’s most prominent agent, whose simmering public feud with the Toronto Blue Jays dates back literally decades, now chumming it up in the team’s clubhouse with management and one of his premier clients.

A lot’s changed at One Blue Jays Way, a fact symbolized no better than by Friday evening’s image of Boras sitting atop a blue-trimmed podium in front of Blue Jays and Rogers logos along with club president Mark Shapiro, general manager Ross Atkins, and the most notable Boras client the organization has ever signed, Ryu.

The 32-year-old South Korean will be paid $80 million over the next four years — the largest free-agent pitching deal the franchise has ever awarded. Blue Jays management will take umbrage with the following comment, but many never thought they’d see the day.

It was one thing for Shapiro and Atkins to state their intentions of acquiring a premier pitcher over and over again going into this off-season, but it was another for fans to see it play out before their eyes. And considering Boras’ hostile history with the club, and the fact he represented essentially every name atop this winter’s free-agent class, there was ample reason for doubt.

But again, a lot’s changed. The Blue Jays have actually had extensive discussions with Boras about a number of his clients, including Ryu, of course, but also Gerrit Cole and Mike Moustakas. Boras says he can remember at least nine or 10 significant interactions with Atkins and Shapiro this winter, including phone calls and in-person sit-downs at the General Managers’ and Winter Meetings.

The Blue Jays expressed strong interest in Ryu as early as November, which the left-hander says left an immediate impression on him. And Atkins remained persistent with Boras, following up repeatedly as the off-season wore on, reaffirming the club’s interest even after he moved to add Tanner Roark and Shun Yamaguchi to its pitching staff.

But Ryu had options —“three or four other teams had strong interest,” according to Boras — including the Dodgers, an organization he grew up cheering for (L.A. right-hander Chan Ho Park was his favourite player) and spent the last seven seasons living his dream with. But the Blue Jays won over Ryu with their persistence, plus an offer that included a crucial fourth year at an annual average value that Boras felt fairly reflected his client’s position in the market.

“Not a week went by that Ross wasn’t calling and saying, “Look, we want to sit down and really make a very serious play to see if we can bring him here,’” Boras said. “And with each week I’d report to Hyun-Jin. When he returned to Korea, I kept telling him, ‘The Blue Jays are calling, they’re calling.’ And then the offers started coming in and I think he became very familiar with the franchise then.

“I think the pursuit and the consistency really allowed him to look at Toronto as though they wanted him. I think that was important to him.”

Hearing Boras describing the Blue Jays persistence stands in stark contrast to the commentary he’s offered with regards to the franchise’s spending habits during past off-seasons. In 2014, Boras described the Blue Jays as “a car with a huge engine that is impeded by a big corporate stop sign.” That came towards the end of Paul Beeston’s tenure as Blue Jays president and, in turn, the end of a literally decades-long feud between the two men that contributed to Toronto’s reticence to sign or even draft Boras clients.

Boras continued to prod the organization under its new president, Shapiro, strongly criticizing the club in 2017 for renewing then pre-arbitration pitcher Aaron Sanchez’s contract at the major-league minimum, describing it as “the harshest treatment in baseball that any team could provide for a player.” And it was only a year ago that Boras was saying the organization was stricken with a “blue flu,” a self-caused ailment producing symptoms of declining attendance, fan interest, and competitiveness.

But his tone changed notably this off-season as the rebuilding Blue Jays finally showed a willingness to re-enter the top end of free agency. “I think the spirit with which they want to return the franchise to where I think it should be, (it) is more likely we have a common thought about that today,” Boras said at this year’s GM meetings. Six weeks later, he was shimmying to Montoyo’s bongos and singing the Blue Jays praises.

“Really, Ross and Mark did a good job of letting us know that, ‘hey, we’re very serious about this player. We consider him an important part of our growth and what we’ve been waiting to build here,’” Boras said. “And I think it was a message that Hyun-Jin really looked at favourably.”

Ryu’s impact on the field is obvious. He finished second in National League Cy Young voting last season, having pitched to a 2.32 ERA over 182.2 innings. But the signing could provide the Blue Jays additional business benefits, as well.

Baseball is a massively popular sport among Koreans, and Toronto is home to a growing population of Korean immigrants. During the 2016 census, 73,385 Toronto residents reported their ethnic origin as Korean, with 45,700 indicating they were born in South Korea and 38,435 listing Korean as the language spoken most often at home.

It’s a large domestic pool of potential ticket- and merchandise-buyers for the Blue Jays to tap into. When Ryu made his first — and so far only — appearance at Rogers Centre back in 2013, a local Korean organization helped fill a right-field 100-level section with an estimated 1,000 Ryu fans, who waved flags and chanted the Dodgers rookie’s name throughout his start.

It wasn’t a driving factor in doing the deal, but it’s possible increased ticket sales on the days Ryu starts could help off-set the cost of his contract. And to that end, the club is in the preliminary stages of brain-storming marketing and promotional opportunities it could build around its new star.

An interesting example can be found at Safeco Field in Seattle, where the Mariners offered fans special pricing along with merchandise giveaways on nights staff ace Felix Hernandez was pitching. They sat en masse in a section down the left field line dubbed “King’s Court,” chanting and hoisting big, yellow “K” signs whenever Hernandez had two strikes on a hitter. The promotion was so popular that the Mariners had to expand the section, and even incorporated an upper deck portion named “High Court” for marquee games.

There’s a fine line to walk between forcing traditions like those and letting them develop organically. But it’s clear opportunities exist here for Ryu, who can now tap into the benefits his celebrity allows in three different countries. It wasn’t a critical factor in Ryu choosing the Blue Jays — but being comfortable with his environment certainly played a part.

“I think it was more recognizing what an incredible international city Toronto is. We’re very aware of the Korean population here, both in students and business, and what a tight-knit community it is,” Shapiro said. “And feeling like it would be a great place for Ryu and his family to be and feeling like it would be a great synergy with Toronto and Canada in general. So, that was a consideration. Not a driving factor, but certainly something that we thought would make for a great alignment in the relationship moving forward.”

Of course, no Blue Jays fan should be concerned with how this move affects ownership’s bottom line. But for diehards who spent a long 2019 summer sitting in a lifeless, half-filled ballpark watching a mediocre product, an injection of energy, culture, and pure butts in seats would have a positive effect, atmospherically-speaking.

And the mere fact the Blue Jays made such a large commitment to a free agent pitcher ought to re-energize a restless fanbase that, anecdotally, had grown progressively frustrated with the direction of the team and mistrusting of club management. That it was a Boras client sitting up there on that stage Friday, along with Boras himself, only further drove home how much things have changed for the Blue Jays this winter.

Of course, the duration of the good will the Ryu signing has bought will depend on what happens next. Projected to be a 2.8 fWAR player in 2020 by Steamer, Ryu doesn’t move Toronto’s needle enough on his own to return the team to contention in a hyper-competitive division. And even with his salary on the books, Toronto’s 2020 payroll currently projects somewhere between $100- and 110-million, far off the $140-160-million payrolls the club operated with in recent seasons.

Ultimately, there is more work to be done, and more money to do it with. That likely won’t mean another big splash in free agency this off-season, considering the lack of remaining high-end supply on the market. But will it mean the Blue Jays take on salary in order to acquire an impactful piece through trade? Will it mean Toronto’s a player for a premium free agent once again next winter, making a sizable commitment to James Paxton, Trevor Bauer, or Mookie Betts?

These are the new questions for Blue Jays fans to obsess about after the club’s front office answered a whole host of past ones with one fell swoop Friday. And, for the first time in a long time, even someone like Boras is saying a lot’s changed at One Blue Jays Way.

“I think in next year’s round of free agency there’s going to be people looking at this team a lot differently than they did two years ago. And that’s what will continue to attract greatness to it,” Boras said. “Frankly, when you think about what built the teams in ‘92 and ‘93, there were a host of players that came here that were great players. That joined Dave Steib and Winfield and Alomar and Molitor and Joe Carter — they all came here to make this city great. It takes a layer cake of talent and you have to continue adding to it. And I think that players are going to really see that there’s movement north towards a playoff calibre team.”

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Source link