CPBL Foreign Players Updates Volume #324
Rakuten Monkeys News: Marcelo Martinez
On February 7, the Rakuten Monkeys announced the signing of 27-year-old Mexican left-hander Marcelo Martinez. According to the team, Martinez is set to arrive in Taiwan around mid-February, after the Lunar New Year holiday.
“He has a good command of his breaking pitches. This is one of the reasons why we decided to sign Marcelo Martinez,” said the Monkeys AGM.
Marcelo Martinez was active within the Kansas City Royals system from 2018 to 2023, where he topped out at the Triple-A level. Like many foreign players, he plays affiliated baseball in the summer and heads down to Mexico to play in the winter league during the offseason.
His final season in Triple-A was in 2023, where he compiled a 4.29 ERA and 1.38 WHIP over 21 innings. After leaving the MLB system in midseason, Marcelo Martinez landed a contract with the Sultanes de Monterrey of the Mexican League and finished the season with a 3.06 ERA across 17.2 innings.
Prior to his signing with the Rakuten Monkeys, Marcelo Martinez was active in the Mexican Winter League, where he posted a solid 2.77 ERA and 1.05 WHIP over 68.1 innings. Marcelo Martinez also made an appearance in Game 3 of the LIDOM Final Series, hurling 5 scoreless innings with 5 strikeouts for the Estrellas Orientales.
As of today, the Rakuten Monkeys have Shunsuke Suzuki, Pedro Fernández, Manny Bañuelos and Marcelo Martinez as their foreign players for the 2024 CPBL season.
Further Readings
Foreign players come and go. Therefore, we have compiled a tracker to monitor all foreign player signings for the 2024 CPBL season.
CPBL teams seem to hot on left-handed starters this year.
Yeah, it’s a record-high for this season. I think as of yesterday, 53 left-handed pitchers (11 foreign left-handed pitchers). It is partly due to the spiked of good left-handed hitters in the CPBL in the past 5-10 years.