CPBL Foreign Players Updates Volume #89
Guardians, Brothers News: Bollinger, Villanueva
With the recent departure of Henry Sosa (KBO buyout) and Alex Liddi (released), the Fubon Guardians and Chinatrust Brothers have called up Ryan Bollinger and Elih Villanueva from the farm team.
28-year-old left-hander Ryan Bollinger was signed by the Fubon Guardians as the fourth back up foreign pitcher in April. During his time in the CPBL farm league, he posted an 8.57 ERA, 1.95 WHIP, 20 strikeouts and ten walks across 21 innings of work.
The Brothers once again bought back 32-year-old right-hander Elih Villanueva as the team’s back up in late April. In five farm league games, he posted a 4.74 ERA, 1.22 WHIP over 24.2 innings.
Both Bollinger and Villanueva are expected to join their team’s starting rotation, and it is highly likely to make their 2019 CPBL debut this week should the weather permits.
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 2019 CPBL season.
I am somewhat doubtful that either Bollinger or Villanueva will last much beyond the end of the first half.
I think both team will be looking for back up too. Bollinger got some potential in my opinion. But yeah, like any foreign players we will only know when they make their 1st team debut.
I only watched about 2 Bollinger’s farm team games. Might have some control issues when there are runners on base.
Villanueva was a bit on and off last year too. So we will see if coming back for 2nd year would help him getting used to pitching in Taiwan.
By the way, another former CPBL guy left the Atlantic League today. Darin Downs will head to the Mexican League.
Downs had pitched well in the Atlantic League this year, but the Acereros Del Norte signed him first. Mike Mariot also signed with the Tijuana Toros today.
Are you having problem accessing the Atlantic League stats on their website? Their 2019 stats page is not showing up properly for me.
What do you use to find the Atlantic League stats? Baseball reference?