myworldofbaseball

In Taiwan the foreign players are usually pitchers. Chinatrust manager Scott Budner preferred to have a position player and two pitchers for his foreign composition. The Brothers signed Eric Wood to cover third base and add power to the offense.

Two games into the 2019 season the Brothers released Wood. It was not because he failed to get a hit in his first nine at bats. According to CBLstats the manager claimed Wood was not a team player. The agent for Wood denied the allegation that Wood was not a team player but accepted the release.

The Brothers have now signed the Italian Alex Liddi to play third base. He had been playing in Mexico, recently switching teams. He will be the first Italian player to play in Taiwan, after becoming the first Italian bred player to play in the major leagues.

According to a major league baseball press release there are 251 foreign players from 20 different countries or areas who appear on 25 man major league rosters, or are on restricted or disabled lists. That accounts for 28.5% of the players. The Dominican Republic again leads in the most major league players outside the 50 United States. Below is a breakdown of where all those foreign players are from;

1. Dominican Republic (102)
2. Venezuela (68)
3. Cuba (19)
4. Puerto Rico (18)
5. Mexico (8)
6. Japan (6)
7. Canada (6)
8. Curacao (5)
9. South Korea (5)
10. Colombia (4)
11. Aruba (1)
12. Australia (1)
13. Brazil (1)
14. Germany (1)
15. Lithuania (1)
16. Netherlands (1)
17. Nicaragua (1)
18. Panama (1)
19. Taiwan (1)
20. U.S. Virgin Islands (1)

In Taiwan the four teams have come up with their slogans for the 2019 season. The defending champion LaMigo Monkeys are “Conquer”. The Uni-Lions use the phrase “Lion” to coin the phrase “proud as a lion.” The Fubon Guardians use the phrase “All Grit.”

The phrase that is turning the most popular is the Chinatrust Brothers who use the primary slogan “Brothers Got Balls.” They also have a secondary slogan “Chiallenge”, which is a play on the word “Challenge” and one of their retiring players Peng Cheng-Min (Chia Chai).

You can view the posters going to the cpblstats.com website.

The World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) 12 and under World Cup will be played in Tainan City from July 26 to August 4. Tainan City will be hosting the 12 and under until 2027, holding the next five events. They will be the Williamsburg of the WBSC. Fiji is the one interesting new player in this tournament. Taiwan won this event in 2011, the first year it was played, but the United States did not participate in that tournament. The last three events the United States has won the championship. Below are the groupings for the tournament.

Group A

Taiwan, Japan, Czech Republic, South Africa, Cuba and Fiji

Group B

United States, Mexico, Korea, Australia, Venezuela and Italy

The teams in Taiwan have signed their quota of three foreign players. Each team uses a 26 man roster with only two of the three foreign players allowed to play on the field at the same time. Normally, Taiwan teams load their foreign quota with pitchers but this year a position player has been signed. It does not make a lot of sense to sign two position players for one team since one of them would be required to sit when a foreign player is used as a starting pitcher. Below are the foreign players playing in Taiwan:

LaMigo Monkeys

Michael Nix
Zeke Spruill
Radhames Liz - pitched in the NBP and KBO but yet to appear in major leagues. His 95 mile per hour heat could have got him an opportunity with the Orioles but he went to Japan to play.

Uni-Lions

Josh Roenicke - Another Oriole connection. The son of Gary Roenicke.
Ryan Verdugo
Austin Bibens-Dirkx - Most foreign players who come to Taiwan have played either in the minor leagues or Independent ball. It is rare for a player to come to Taiwan a year after pitching in the major leagues (6.20 ERA and .308 opposition average).

Fubon Guardians

Mike Loree
Bryan Woodall
Henry Sosa

China Trust Brothers

Nick Additon
Mitch Lively
Eric Wood - The lone position player

A lot of the players are in their second or multiple years in Taiwan. CBLstats.com provides some good information on the Taiwan league.

The Honkball and World Port tournament play every other year. The Honkball is in Haarlem while the World Port tournament is played in Rotterdam. Taiwan will be returning to defend their championship against the local team Netherlands and Curacao. Japan will also be participating as well as a United States group.

Cuba is not playing for the first time since 1993. Their absence is because they are unable to send a strong team to compete in the tournament. That is a sad sign of the decline of Cuban baseball.

The dates for the tournament are July 12 to 21.

CPBLstats.com reports on the possible expansion of one baseball team to the CPBL and the delay in the participation of another. It was reported by CPBLstats that the Ting-Hsin International Group will revive the Wei-Chuan Dragons, one of the more popular teams in the CPBL until they dropped out of the league in December 1999, one month after winning the Taiwan Series.

Before playing in the CPBL the team would have to pay a $19 million fee and play in the minor leagues for two years. While they play in the minor leagues they would accumulate players by participating in the CPBL draft beginning with the July 2019 draft. They would possibly host their games in the Taipei Dome in Kaohsiung City.

One team that has delayed their participation in the CPBL is a team from Australia. They were supposed to join the CPBL playing in the minor leagues for two years beginning in 2019. They have asked for a postponement to their participation in the league until 2019 or 2020. Taiwan also plans to add a Taiwanese team to the Australian Baseball League in 2019.

Australia’s delay in creating a team for the CPBL may be the large expense for forming a team. It may also be a reluctance of some teams in the CPBL from accepting a team from Australia. Australia is looking to seek clearer guidance on the path for the team to eventually join the CPBL. Communications from the two sides will continue to determine feasibility. It would seem to make sense if they agree to the return of the Wei Chuan Dragons as a fifth team in the CPBL they would need to find a sixth team to balance out the schedule.

The top 12 teams from the Premier 12 will compete in November 2019 for two spots in the 2020 Olympics. The 12 teams will be broken out into groups of four similar to the World Baseball Classic. These games will be held November 2-8 in Mexico, Taiwan and Korea. Two teams from each of these these groups of four will advance to the finals in Tokyo. They will play the games November 11-16 in the Tokyo Dome and Chiba Marine Stadium in pool play. On November 17 the finals will be held with the top two teams playing against each other and the third and fourth place teams competing for the bronze. This could be rather anticlimactic since the top two teams have already qualified for the Olympics and third place only gets you a bronze medal. But athletes play for pride.

The 12 teams that are eligible to compete are (in order of ranking):

1) Japan, 2) United States, 3) Korea, 4) Taiwan, 5) Cuba, 6) Mexico, 7) Australia, Netherlands, 9) Venezuela, 10) Canada, 11) Puerto Rico, 12) Dominican Republic

Just missing from qualifying for the event are Panama, Colombia and Nicaragua, which finished 13-15 in the rankings.

Korea is the defending champions of the only Premier 12 to be played to date. The United States finished second and Japan third. The November time frame has been established to allow the countries to bring their top players to compete in this event. The professional leagues from Japan, United States, Taiwan and Korea will be over. Cuba will postpone their Nacional Series schedule as they do for the World Baseball Classic. It will be the best baseball has to offer outside of the World Baseball Classic.

The Taiwan slugger Wang Po-Jung signed with the Nippon Ham Fighters for three years and $4 million. There are also additional incentives to the contract that have not been disclosed. He becomes the first player from the CPBL to sign via the posting system. Though major league teams could have participated in the posting process they did not because of no formalized process in place with Taiwan for the acquisition of players. No information has been provided on the posting fee paid to the La Miga Monkeys, though it has been projected to be near $1 million.

The NPB has a limit of four foreign players on their major league roster, with no more than three of them being a pitcher or position player. Wang will count on that four player limit, meaning the Fighters think enough of him to use up a roster spot for his services over major league players.

Wang hit .414 and .407 in his first two full seasons in the CPBL, slugging 29 and 31 homeruns. His third season last year could be considered a disappointment as he hit only .351 with 17 homeruns. His slugging percentage dropped more than 100 points. He won the CPBL rookie of the year in 2016 and was voted MVP in 2016 and 2017. During his rookie year of 2016 he became the first CPBL player to record 200 hits during a season.

There are not as many countries that participant in woman’s baseball. Japan is the most dominant, currently carrying a 30 game world cup winning streak. Canada, the number two rated team came the closest to beating Japan in the World Cup, losing 2-1 in a Super Round game. Taiwan jumped three spots after finishing second in last year’s World Cup. Most of the top United States players are encouraged to play softball because of a lack of baseball programs for women. They dropped a notch after failing to medal the last two years. Below are the top 14 countries for woman’s baseball:

1. Japan - 2000 points
2. Canada - 1300
3. Taiwan - 1297
4. United States - 1094
5. Venezuela - 989
6. Australia - 904
7. Cuba - 537
8. Korea - 500
9. Dominican Republic - 433
10. Hong Kong - 363
11. Netherlands - 311
12. Puerto Rico - 267
13. India - 104
14. Pakistan - 67