CPBL Foreign Player Limit Under Review
There could be some changes to the CPBL foreign player policy. According to the Chinatrust Brothers’ general manager, all four teams have come to an overall consensus to increase the number of foreign players.
The Brothers submitted the proposal back in June, and it will be up for discussion at the next teams meeting. Should the league approved, it is likely to be implemented in the 2020 season.
Under the current foreign player policy, each team can sign an unlimited number of foreign players. However, only three can be on the first team active roster. Should a team wish to call up a new foreign player, they would have to release another foreign player.
Potential Outcomes for 2020 Season
Here are two potential outcomes for the new foreign player policy. The only information we know is that all the teams are leaning towards increasing the limit.
- Increase the total foreign players to four with three pitchers and one positional player.
- Increase the total foreign players to four, but keep the first team limit at three. Teams will now have the ability to rotate their foreign players between first and farm team freely.
I’m hoping the first option is implemented since it should immediately improve the overall talent level in the CPBL while the second option should still be an improvement since there will be better depth in the farm team and it would be more convenient for CPBL teams.
Should definitely make foreign positional player mandatory. But I don’t think it will happen at least for another 3-5 years.
However, we might see mandatory foreign hitter when the 5th team is in place and if the league increase the number of the games.
Allowing CPBL teams to have a fourth foreign player who must be a position player makes the most sense in light of the addition of the Dragons as an expansion team. Allowing the four existing teams and the Dragons to have a foreign position player will free up some Taiwanese talent for the Dragons to fill out their major league roster in an expansion draft, if there is one.
CPBL teams should be able to find four or five foreign players who could perform well in the CPBL, although the recent experiments with foreign position players over the five seasons have been uniformly unsuccessful. CPBL teams will have to get better at scouting foreign position players.
However, the idea of allowing teams to carry four foreign players, but only allowing three on the major league roster, and not requiring teams to release players but allowing them to be switched at the minor league level with the fourth player isn’t a bad idea either. I would prefer to see more foreign position players in the CPBL, even if it’s just one out of four roster spots, though.
Is there going to be an expansion draft for the Dragons? If so, I would like to see one where the existing CPBL teams only get to protect a total of 15 players on their major and minor league rosters for the first round, and then get to protect three more players for the second round. That way, there would be some legitimate major league players and prospects available to the Dragons to build an organization out of, even with the extra draft picks they have received so far.
They will do one at the end of the year. Anyone outside of the 30-man protection roster. Dragons can sign at least 2 players from each team.
At the end of 2020, there will be another expansion draft. Where it is anyone outside of the 18-man roster. Dragons can sign 1 per team.
Me too, I hope they can make it mandatory to have foreign positional player.
Ideally, what they should do is to make foreign contact to be annual contract. This is going to make teams focusing more on hiring better quality players rather than just based on agent recommendation and treat it like “pot luck”.
Hopefully the league will announce the new foreign player policy soon. Would be interesting to see the finalised version.
Indeed. Would be good for the CPBL scouts and scouting community in general as well.
There are some very good CPBL scouts who get marginalized when it comes to the signing of foreign players.
Marginalised in what way? As in lack of overall funding to sign foreign players? Would love to hear more stories on the scouting side of things if you can share some.