Revival of CPBL Winter League, Asia Professional Baseball Championship
After years of postponement due to the coronavirus pandemic, baseball fans in Asia can finally consume more baseball during the offseason within their time zone.
On December 14, the CPBL commissioner announced the Asia Winter Baseball League and Asia Professional Baseball Championship will return in 2023.
2023 Asia Winter Baseball League
The Asia Winter Baseball League (CPBL Winter League) usually take place in Taiwan during the offseason around November and December.
In the past, the CPBL Winter League is predominantly made up of teams from the NPB, KBO, CPBL and JABA (Japan’s Industrial League), where they send their top prospects to Taiwan for more seasoning during the offseason.
Occasionally, the CPBL winter league also invited non-Asian teams to participate, such as the team from the Dominican Baseball Federation (2012, 13), Euro All-Star (2015, 16) and WBSC All-Star (2017).
There were even cases of the CPBL expansion team (Wei Chuan Dragons in 2019) and Taiwan’s U-21 National Team (2015, 16) taking part in the winter league.
Notable CPBL Winter League Alumni
- Yoshida Masataka
- Yamada Tetsuto
- Murakami Munetaka
- Ohta Taishi
- Kai Takuya
- Okamoto Kazuma
- Takahashi Shuhei
- Kurihara Ryoya
- Aoyagi Koyo
- Sano Keita
- Shiomi Yasutaka
- Shimizu Noboru
- Nakano Takumu
- Kuribayashi Ryoji
- Ahn Chi-hong
- Jeon Jun-woo
- Park Se-woong
- Koo Ja-wook
Remember when Masataka Yoshida (吉田正尚) was in Taiwan playing for Team #NPB West and dominated the #CPBL Winter League in 2016?
Yoshida won 4 batting titles and was named 2016 Asia Winter Baseball League MVP.
? Batting Average: .565
? Home Runs: 6
? Hits: 30
? RBI: 29 https://t.co/fSv9bwhp7U pic.twitter.com/UykBGmQjLc— CPBL STATS – ♥️ #95, Mina (@GOCPBL) December 8, 2022
2023 Asia Professional Baseball Championship
The Asia Professional Baseball Championship (APBC) is a four-nation U-24 tournament spearheaded by each country’s top professional league (Japan’s NPB, Korea’s KBO, Taiwan’s CPBL and Baseball Australia).
The goal is to promote more interleague collaborations and use international tournaments to develop each country’s top young talents under 24 or players with less than three years of service.
According to the CPBL commissioner, Fubon Guardians’ farm team manager, Chen Chin-Feng, will most likely lead Team Taiwan in the Asia Professional Baseball Championship. The tournament will be held in Tokyo, Japan between November 16-19.
2017 Asia Professional Baseball Championship Results
- Opening Round
- NPB vs KBO (8:7)
- KBO vs CPBL (1:0)
- NPB vs CPBL (8:2)
- Gold Medal Game
- NPB vs KBO (7:0)