CPBL Foreign Players Updates Volume #425
Fubon Guardians News: Abe Yudai
On January 18, broadcaster Wang Yi-Hsuan revealed on social media that the Fubon Guardians have signed Japanese industrial league pitcher Abe Yudai (阿部雄大) to a developmental contract for the 2026 CPBL season. The 25-year-old left-hander is expected to arrive in Taiwan this week and will report to the Guardians for the first phase of spring training.
After graduating from school, in the past several years (2019-2025), Abe Yudai has been active in Japan’s industrial league (JABA), playing for ENEOS Corporation.
While I couldn’t find Abe Yudai’s stats for the 2025 season, I was able to find his career JABA stats from 2019 to 2025. Across 25 games, including 12 starts, he compiled a career 3.12 ERA and 1.08 WHIP, with 66 strikeouts and 20 walks over 72 innings. Based on footage from the 2025 season, his fastball has reached velocities of up to 148 kph.
Despite being on the radar of several NPB teams, Abe Yudai ultimately went undrafted in the 2025 NPB Draft. After going undrafted for multiple years, he decided to pursue a new opportunity by joining Taiwan’s CPBL on a developmental contract.
Under current CPBL regulations, there is no limit on the number of foreign developmental players a team can sign, as long as they are not registered on the active roster. Players on developmental contracts are only eligible to appear in minor league games. If a team wishes to promote a developmental player to the first team, they must officially register him and, in order to make room, permanently remove another foreign player from the active roster.
At present, CPBL teams are allowed to carry only four foreign players on the active roster. Once a foreign player is removed from the active roster, he is not eligible to return for the remainder of the season.
With the signing of Abe Yudai (development player), the Fubon Guardians currently have Suzuki Shunsuke, Shawn Morimando, Aaron Wilkerson, Erick Leal and Luis Liberato as their group of foreign players for the 2026 season.
Further Readings
Foreign players come and go. Therefore, we have compiled a foreign player tracker, and I’ll be updating that list regularly to keep pace with the ever-changing roster shuffle throughout the 2026 CPBL season.
Any idea what the developmental players typically get paid?
I’m a bit surprised that CPBL teams don’t sign more developmental players out of the Atlantic League and American Association to start the season to see if any of them could be good enough to step in when one of the four major league foreign players gets hurt or cut. It probably has something to do what developmental players like Abe are getting paid.
I’m not too sure to be honest. But if I have to take a guess, the salary for foreign development players is probably between 4K-8K USD a month? Maybe even less than that.