CPBL Foreign Players Updates Volume #238
CTBC Brothers News: Michael Mariot
On July 24, the CTBC Brothers announced the signing of 33-year-old American right-hander Michael Mariot. According to the Brothers’ general manager, they purchased Michael Mariot’s contract from Triple-A, and he should arrive in Taiwan in two weeks.
Michael Mariot began his professional career with the Kansas City Royals in 2010 and quickly made his way up to MLB in just four years. From 2014 to 2016, Mariot posted a 5.98 ERA over 49.2 innings with the Royals and the Phillies.
Between 2018-2021, he was active in the Atlantic League, Dominican Winter League, Mexican League and the American Association before working his way back to the MLB system.
In 2022, Michael Mariot spent most of his time in the minor league. Prior to his signing with the Uni-Lions, he posted a 4.90 ERA and 1.38 WHIP over 79 innings of work in Triple-A.
Michael Mariot will join José De Paula, Makita Kazuhisa and Francisco Peña as the Brothers’ foreign players. According to the Brothers’ general manager, the team will likely sign another new foreign pitcher to bolster its rotation.
This ? certainly was an excellent curveball ? from Michael Mariot. ?#LetsGoHens pic.twitter.com/IXpbIUd24i
— Toledo Mud Hens (@MudHens) July 2, 2022
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 2022 CPBL season.
Underwhelming, I remember looking at his numbers prior to the trade to the Mud Hens and I remarked that he was pretty much one of the worst qualified starters in AAA.
With the dejuiced ball, maybe he will find success in Taiwan. But like all foreign players going overseas, it’s like rolling a dice.
The reason I’m not sold on Mariot doing well is a 16.3% K and 9.3% BB in AAA which is driving his FIP to 6.05 and his xFIP to 5.96
Marriot looks like a league-average AAA starter to me (by my count, he currently has 25th best run average among 41 pitchers with at least 10 International League starts so far this season), which gives him a good shot at being an effective CPBL starter in the second half of 2022. If he was a better than average AAA starter, he’d probably stay in the MLB system, since he’d still have a reasonable shot to make it back to the MLB majors.
33 year old, slightly below league average AAA starters with a limited major league track record typically don’t get signed by any MLB organization for their age 34 seasons, so Marriot is certainly making the right decision by taking advantage of this CPBL opportunity.
It’s pretty rare to see CPBL teams buying out contract mid-season from the MLB system.
On paper he should do okay in the CPBL, but yeah, I guess we will find out in a few weeks.
I don’t think Marriot was making much money in AAA in light of the fact that he pitched more recently in the Indy-A Leagues than the majors. I doubt he was making more than around $5,500 a month to pitch in AAA. It’s also possible that someone in his MLB organization let him know that he was on thin ice, most likely because some younger AA starter was ready for a promotion to AAA. Unfortunately, unless the teams involved let you know how it came about, all one can really do is speculate.