Ryu Hyun-jin named an NL Cy Young Award finalist

Ryu Hyun-jin who recently became a free agent after finishing the season as a pitcher of the Los Angeles Dodgers has been nominated as one of the three final lists for the National League Cy Young Award announced by the Major League Baseball on Tuesday. He is the first South Korean baseball player to earn a Cy Young vote. Jacob deGrom of the New York Mets and Max Scherzer of the Washington Nationals are the two other pitchers who made the list.

It is quite an achievement that Ryu has been nominated as the three final lists, regardless of whether or not he will win the award. Among the past winners who had been decided by 30 reporters of the Baseball Writers' Association of America, there has not been any Asian player.

Baseball fans are wondering what points the South Korean pitcher has received. Reporters who participate in the vote cast five votes to who they believe are No. 1 to No. 5 players – with seven points are given for the No. 1 vote, four points for No. 2, three points for No. 3, two points for No. 4, and the No. 5 vote earns a player one point. Ryu made the top three list in terms of the sum of such points. This year’s winner of the award will be announced on November 14. Since 2010 when the current voting method was introduced, Japanese pitcher Yu Darvish of the Texas Rangers was the Asian player who earned the highest points so far. He earned 93 points in 2013, which put him in the second position in the American League.

Local U.S. media predict that deGrom is likely to win the award for two seasons in a row. The New York Mets pitcher won last year’s award based on his outstanding ERA of 1.70 despite the lowest number of wins among all Cy Young award winners in history. This year, he recorded 11 wins and eight losses with an ERA of 2.62. More notably, he left strong impression with 1.89 ERA in the last 23 games and collected 255 strikeouts – the highest record in the National League. Scherzer whose records are also 11 wins and eight losses contributed to the team’s MLB World Series win, however, the win had no impact on votes as it came after the end of the regular season.


Heon-Jae Lee uni@donga.com