CPBL Foreign Players Updates Volume #112

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Chinatrust Brothers News: Ariel Miranda

A few days ago, the Chinatrust Brothers hinted they are in the process of signing two new foreign players. One of them being a left-hander from the 2019 NPB roster. With the information given by the team, the online baseball community quickly came up with five potential candidates.

On January 7, the Chinatrust Brothers officially announced the signing of Ariel Miranda. According to ETtoday, the salary for Ariel Miranda is at least $600,000 USD, excluding performance incentives.

“I am thrilled to have to opportunity and hope I can help the Brothers to win the Championship this season,” said Ariel Miranda.

Ariel Miranda, the 30-year-old Cuban lefty had three MLB seasons experience pitching for the Seattle Mariners from 2016-18. Over three seasons with the Mariners, he posted a combined record of 4.64 ERA, 1.24 WHIP over 221 innings.

On July 17, 2018, Miranda left the MLB system and joined the SoftBank Hawks in the NPB. From 2018-19, he went 13-6 with a 3.37 ERA, 1.37 WHIP over 133.2 innings.

Ariel Miranda Pitching Repertoire

Based on the 2019 NPB scouting report, when facing hitters, Ariel Miranda mostly relied on his fastball and changeup. His fastball averaged at 144kph and topped out at 151kph.

As for his breaking pitches, he has a 130kph changeup, 128kph splitter, 124kph slider and 116kph curveball which he rarely threw.

  • Fastball: 58%
  • Changeup: 23%
  • Splitter: 4.7%
  • Slider: 4.4%
  • Curveball: 0.6%


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.

7 COMMENTS

  1. Ariel Miranda has some bad flyball tendencies and I’d say he’s the most likely foreign CPBL player to be released mid season.

    • True, he is a flyball guy (G/F 0.61), but if look deeper, his infield flyball percentage (20.3) is higher than league average.

      My concern with him is his ability to go deep into the innings given his salary. I think the team will probably want him to go at least 7 innings every outing. His BB% 12.7 is another potential issue.

      Having said all that. On paper, I think he will do alright in Taiwan, but just like any new foreign players, need to monitor a few games then we can get a better picture. Although he pitched in Japan before, the CPBL is another different baseball environment.

  2. 600,000 dollars? Didn’t foreign players in the CPBL usually receive less than $300,000? How can Ariel Miranda be paid so much? Has the annual salary of a CPBL foreign player increased across the board? What’s Henry Sosa or Mike Laurie’s 2020 season salary?

    I am sorry that I am not good at English because I’m a foreigner.

    • Generally speaking $20,000 USD per month is the standard. However, there are other cases of higher salary such as Manny Ramirez and Freddy Garcia, both were on $50,000 – $60,000 per month before.

      For CPBL teams, they can actually afford to spend on foreign players similar to the KBO pricing. Many of the teams’ parent company are some of the richest companies in Taiwan.

      However, I think the reason why they don’t do it in the past is because the league public image was not nice due to all the game-fixing scandals between mid-90s to 2009.

      I think Henry Sosa is on $50,000 per month, and Mike Loree could potentially at $40,000 per month.

  3. I like the Miranda signing, although I do wonder if he’s really set to earn $600K. He’s 31 in 2020, and he has pitched 117 innings and 111 innings the last two seasons, which means his arm is probably still pretty fresh. He’s a little wild and prone to long balls, but in the CPBL, he can probably get away with challenging hitters more.

    I also feel like it’s time for the CPBL to get in on the Cuban wave. Cubans have been enormously successful the last ten years in Japan and South Korea, so it’s time for the CPBL to find a Cuban player or two who can become stars in Taiwan.

    How many foreign player roster spots are left? Are the Uni-Lions interested in bring back Josh Roenicke for 2020?

    There are going to be a lot of 34 to 36 year old foreign starters in the CPBL in 2020, which almost certainly means some of them will get injured.

    • The Brothers’ general manager did not go into detail of Miranda’s contract, but he confirmed it is more than $500,000 USD a year. The media per their own sources within the industry suggested it is actually more than $600,000 a year.

      Miranda’s high BB% is a potential concern, but CPBL hitters are not on the same level with the NPB hitters in terms of making pitchers paying for their mistakes. In my opinion, Miranda’s biggest problem would be what sort of results he needs to put out to make the Brothers’ organisation happy. Would be very interesting to see the Brothers’ attitude towards him a few months into the season.

      As for Cuban players, there were maybe 9 or 10 Cuban in 30 years of CPBL history. The most famous one is probably former MLB veteran José Contreras in 2015. He was extremely fun to watch, at 43 years old, his fastball can still reached 156kph (97mph), very smart pitcher and knows his game well.

      The Guardians and Brothers pretty much filled out their 4 foreign players quota. There is rumour, after the Brothers signed that yet to be named former KBO righty, they will still find another guy as 5th backup.

      Monkeys only signed Radhames Liz so far, but I think they will probably bring back Michael Nix for 2020. The Uni-Lions hasn’t sign anyone yet, they are still in talks with Josh Roenicke. But according to the Uni-Lions’ GM, they only plan to sign 3 foreign players this year. Why? I don’t know, I guess they just enjoy losing.

  4. Jose Contreras was a great pitcher, and he still had a lot left at age 43 when he pitched briefly in Taiwan. Evan MacLane also started nine games in the CPBL in 2015 — he’s still pitching effectively every winter in the Dominican Republic, including this year at age 37.

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