CPBL Foreign Players Updates Volume #326
TSG Hawks News: Bradin Hagens
On March 1, the TSG Hawks announced the signing of Bradin Hagens for the 2024 season. The 34-year-old American right-hander is set to return to Taiwan for his fourth CPBL season.
According to the Hawks, they are hoping to switch Bradin Hagens back to the starting role this season. The last time he started in the CPBL was back in the beginning of 2021 with the Rakuten Monkeys. He started four games and posted a 4.43 ERA across 22.1 innings.
Rakuten Monkeys Bradin Hagens struck out 2 and earned his league-leading 21st save of the season. #CPBL pic.twitter.com/6BtYIKd553
— CPBL STATS 🪬🔮 (@GOCPBL) July 28, 2022
In the past three CPBL seasons, as a member of the Monkeys, Bradin Hagens primarily served as their closer. From 2021 to 2023, he compiled 58 saves and 19 holds with a solid 2.47 ERA and 1.29 WHIP over 162 games and 207.1 innings.
His most notable season was in 2022, where he recorded 36 saves with a dominating 1.44 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 24 K% and 5.5 BB% over 68.2 innings of work.
However, in 2023, Bradin Hagens was not able to repeat the same success. He finished the year with a 3.26 ERA and 1.60 WHIP over 58 innings of relief work. At the end of the season, the Rakuten Monkeys gave up his negotiation rights and announced they were not going to bring him back for the 2024 season.
For someone who has been pitching almost exclusively as a reliever in the past few years, it would be very interesting to see how Bradin Hagens would perform as a starting pitcher this year. Entering his fourth CPBL season, ideally, he should be more familiar with the CPBL hitters and would have a much better understanding of “how to be a starting pitcher” this time around.
As of today, the TSG Hawks have Shōtarō Kasahara, Kento Onodera, Nick Margevicius, Steven Moya, Reymin Guduan and Bradin Hagens 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.