CPBL Foreign Players Updates Volume #290
Rakuten Monkeys News: Pedro Fernandez
On August 14, the Rakuten Monkeys announced the signing of 29-year-old Dominican right-hander Pedro Fernandez from Triple-A. According to the team, Fernadez is set to arrive in Taiwan around August 21.
Pedro Fernandez puts away the big red on-base machine!
Another scoreless frame keeps it a 1-0 game mid 5th. pic.twitter.com/HZcubpova8
— Nashville Sounds (@nashvillesounds) April 1, 2023
Pedro Fernandez began his professional career with the Kansas City Royals system in 2012. Over the year, he only reached Triple-A and had compiled three seasons under his belt.
He left the MLB system at the end of 2018 and wound up pitching in the Mexican League in the summer and the Dominican Winter League during the offseason. His last LIDOM season was at the end of 2022, where he posted a 2.50 ERA and 0.95 WHIP over 50.1 innings for the Gigantes del Cibao.
In 2023, Pedro Fernandez signed a minor league deal with the Milwaukee Brewers and was assigned to Triple-A. Leading up to the signing with the Rakuten Monkeys, Fernandez posted a solid 4.05 ERA and 1.45 WHIP over 66.2 innings in Triple-A.
With the signing of Pedro Fernandez, the Monkeys now have Bradin Hagens, Brooks Hall, Elián Leyva, Jake Dahlberg and Sato Yoshinori as their foreign players on the active roster. The Monkeys must decide which four foreign players to keep before the August 31 trade deadline.
Further Readings
Foreign players comes and goes, therefore we compiled a foreign players tracker to keep track of all the foreign players signing for the 2023 CPBL season.
This looks like a great signing. I though a CPBL team might sign him last winter until he received a minor league deal from the Milwaukee Brewers. He was pitching pretty well at AAA, but he didn’t get a major league shot. He’s 29 now and probably figures his most lucrative future is pitching in Asia. If it doesn’t work out in Asia, he can always return to Mexico.
Since he’s never pitched in the MLB majors, Fernandez was probably only making about $40K to $60K for the season at AAA, and a $40K or $50K offer from the Monkeys for the rest of the 2023 season probably looked pretty good.
Yeah, and shortly after the CPBL, can smoothly transition into LIDOM too. It is pretty good timing wise.