From Afterthought to Ace: Bryan Woo's amazing journey in baseball
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In 2025, Seattle Mariners pitcher Bryan Woo took a big step forward in terms of his stature in Major League Baseball. Registering a career-high 15 wins and finishing among the finalists for the AL Cy Young Award, the 25-year-old California Kid has fans in the Pacific Northwest buzzing about what the future may hold for both him and the team.
But it likely shouldn't have turned out that way. Undrafted as a high school senior, Woo was forced to attend college as a preferred walk-on. In what might be the greatest underdog or 'late bloomer' story in baseball today, Bryan Woo went from being a position player to the mound and overcame the odds to become one of the best in the game right now.
A pitcher and infielder at Alameda High School just outside of Oakland, Woo was a lightly-regarded recruit when he got to Cal Poly, where the coaching staff decided to use him strictly on the mound. Right off the bat, it was a tough adjustment for him, and Woo said he became frustrated with a lack of success.
“I wasn’t very good,” he said in a 2024 interview. "I had one-and-a-half pitches in college: four-seam, no two-seam. My slider was not great. Everything was very old-school — pitch down in the zone, to the corners … and get ground balls. And so I thought that my stuff just wasn't that good, and I just had to really spot up to get outs."
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Woo’s ERA was 6.49 in 69.1 innings across three seasons at Cal Poly, but he learned from his mistakes. He would have Tommy John surgery in 2021, and the Seattle Mariners selected him in the 6th round of that year's MLB Draft. Despite his lack of collegiate success, the team saw his potential and decided to take a shot on the righthander.
Woo would make the jump to the big leagues by 2023, and his unlikely path led him to today. He enters this season with a career mark of 28-15, with 392 strikeouts and a 3.21 ERA in 70 starts.
2025 was a bittersweet year for Woo
Last season, Woo started the year by setting the franchise record with 25 consecutive six-inning starts. It ended with the starter posting a 15–7 record, a 2.98 ERA, and 198 strikeouts in 186.2 innings, finishing fifth in American League Cy Young voting. He was firmly established as the team's ace and one of the league's best starters when he suffered an injury to his pectoral muscle on September 19
While he registered a career high in wins and established himself as an elite starter in 2025, the season ended on a sour note. Woo suffered right pectoral inflammation that hampered him down the stretch, eventually landing him on the Injured List. He would miss some stars in September and sit out the Seattle divisional-round match-up with the Detroit Tigers. He wasn't available as part of the postseason rotation at all, making only two relief appearances in the ALCS.
Despite his ascension, Woo still doesn't refer to himself as the ace of the staff. Instead, he talks about how good the group in the current rotation can be, collectively. Whether he realizes it or not, he's the voice of a leader. Perhaps his unlikely journey to the top is why he shows so much humility; he rarely refers to 'I', and frames it in the terms of 'us'."
“As a staff, we know how good we can be,” Woo said. “We’ve been saying it all along: As long as guys stay healthy and we can get that momentum going at the right time of the year, we’re as good as anybody.”
