CPBL Foreign Players Updates Volume #109

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Chinatrust Brothers News: Two Unnamed Pitchers

On January 6, the Chinatrust Brothers told the media they are close to finalising the contracts with two new foreign pitchers for the 2020 CPBL season.

As for the identities of the two yet to be named pitchers? According to the Brothers’ general manager, one is a left-hander from the NPB and was on the 2019 roster. The other pitcher is a right-hander with former KBO experience. Both pitchers had previous MLB experiences.

Given the clue above, here are all the potential candidates that fit the profile of “left-hander from 2019 NPB roster”.

  • Ariel Miranda
  • David Huff
  • Brandon Mann
  • Sammy Solis
  • Kyle Regnault

Brothers No Longer Interested in Mike Loree

During an interview with SET News, the Brothers’ general manager also confirmed they have given up on the idea of poaching Mike Loree from the Fubon Guardians.

There were rumours back in December that the Chinatrust Brothers and Rakuten Monkeys are eyeing Mike Loree for the 2020 season.

Foreign Player 228, 310 Clause Explained

Under the existing CPBL foreign player policy, the Fubon Guardians currently hold the negotiation rights to Mike Loree until the end of February (228 Clause). Other teams are not allowed to approach or have any contract with him until March 1.

Should a new team sign Mike Loree, then he will be subjected to the “310 Clause“, which prevent him from participating in any team-related activities until March 10. In other words, he will miss out spring training.

Fubon Guardians Mike Loree pitched a 7 perfect innings against Uni-Lions


Further Readings

Foreign players come and goes, therefore we compiled a foreign players tracker to keep track of all the foreign players signing for the 2020 CPBL season.

5 COMMENTS

  1. David Huff is a pitcher I had my eye on as a possible 2020 CPBLer. The CPBL is the only major league not yet on his resume.

    Ariel Miranda would be a great choice if he’ll sign for what a CPBL team wants to pay him. He wasn’t bad for the SoftBank Hawks last year, but not bad isn’t good enough for the Hawks who can and do pay for great performance from their foreigners. I could see a low budget NPB team like the Chiba Lotte Marines trying to sign Miranda for $300K to $500K, though.

    Brandon Mann? Could be. He’s kind of old at 36, but he was a 34 year MLB major league rookie in 2018 and he showed good stuff for the Chiba Lotte Marines last year.

    Sammy Solis has very little experience as a starter and didn’t pitch much last season, so probably not him.

    Kyle Regnault pitched well in NPB, but doesn’t have much experience as a starter.

    There are so many former KBO right-handers who might be a fit for the CPBL, it would be an effort to list them all. I like Christian Friedrich a whole lot, but he’s a lefty. Friedrich split the season between the Atlantic League and the KBO last year and earned around $160,000 for the season. That’s right in the CPBL’s neighborhood.

    • It’s Ariel Miranda! They signed him for at least $600,000 USD, excluding performance incentives. I did not expect they actually going for Miranda, I was banking on David Huff since how much the CPBL teams love players with KBO experience.

      You are right about the potential KBO right-hander, way too many, this is why I didn’t bother to put out a list. Christian Friedrich was on the Guardians and Uni-Lions target list last year before NC DInos snatched him.

    • From my understanding, Miranda made 1.40 million USD last year with SoftBank. Maybe $360K was for the 2018 NPB season?

      Anyway, it is good to see teams here finally came to their senses and decided to bump up the foreign salary bracket. $400K to $600K is the way to go if they want the league level to increase, and also have the higher tier pitchers that can suppress the CPBL hitters.

      I think I talked about this on multiple occasions, that sort of money is pocket change for all of them. They just don’t want to spend it. I hope Miranda will do well this season so we can see more and more $400-600K pitchers in the future.

      As for the former KBO righty, I wonder could it be Esmil Rogers, a power starting pitcher.

      Would be interesting to see how team juggle with 4 foreign players but with 3 active limit. Maybe we will see each of them on some sort of “rest rotation” throughout the season.

  2. Esmil Rogers is definitely a possibility. Going into his age 34 season, I’d bet he’d jump at the chance to make CBPL money. Could be Joe Wieland or Deck McGuire or Donn Roach or Felix Doubront or David Hale or even Scott Copeland. They are all over age 30 former KBO right-handers still looking for 2020 summer commitments.

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