CPBL Foreign Players Updates Volume #355
TSG Hawks News: Steven Moya
On December 17, the TSG Hawks announced the re-signing of Steven Moya for the 2025 season on a deal worth 575,000 USD. The 33-year-old Dominican outfielder will return to Taiwan for his second season in the CPBL.
“I’m thankful to spend another fun year with the Hawks fans. I will do my best again in the 2025 season and help the Hawks win the championship,” said Steven Moya.
TSG Hawks’ Steven Moya displays his insane game power with a 3-run shot to right. #CPBL
🔸 Exit Velocity: 164 kph (102 mph)
🔸 Launch Angle: 28.98°
🔸 Distance: 384 ft pic.twitter.com/ZNMKjfriSb— CPBL STATS 🪬🔮 (@GOCPBL) June 8, 2024
According to UDN, at least two other CPBL teams showed interest in Steven Moya during the 2024 offseason, but the Hawks ultimately sealed the deal and locked him down for 2025.
The TSG Hawks’ general manager told UDN that Moya’s $575,000 contract includes performance incentives, though he did not provide specific details.
It is no exaggeration to say that Steven Moya single-handedly carried the Hawks’ offence in the 2024 season. In 115 games and 493 plate appearances, he slashed .294/.367/.567 with 30 home runs. For reference, the Hawks hit a total of 58 home runs for the entire season—30 of them came from Moya.
Steven Moya finished the 2024 CPBL season leading the league in home runs (30), RBI (99), wRC+ (166) and won the 2024 Best Ten Award (Best DH).
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 2025 CPBL season.
The main reason I wish that every CPBL team would sign a foreign position player is that there is a real bottleneck of hitting talent that doesn’t exist for pitchers. It’s a huge jump from the Mexican League/Caribbean Winter League/Independent A Leagues to the KBO or NPB, and the CPBL would fill that gap.
There are a lot of position players in the four big Caribbean winter leagues this year who would have a reasonable chance to become CPBL stars and potentially advance up the chain of leagues based on CPBL success.
Alas, the CPBL for its own legitimate reasons gets more value from foreign starting pitchers than position players.
With recent expansion CPBL teams are signing more foreign relief pitchers. Position players are more valuable than relief pitchers. But, position players are more hit or miss, and CPBL teams don’t want to pay them foreign starting pitcher salaries to start the season at the minor league level to get up to speed or to sign two to find the one who can adjust quickly.
Also, with so many of the best available foreign starters playing in the CPBL, it isn’t easy for the best available foreign position players to adjust quickly.
The KBO’s Kiwoom Heroes for the first time in recent memory are starting 2025 with two of their three foreign players being position players. Offense is up in the KBO, and the Heroes have to be creative because of their relative poverty. The Heroes also know that if either of the position players doesn’t perform, they can easily find a foreign starter to replace the underperformer once the 2025 season has started.
I would like to see one or two CPBL teams take a chance on foreign position players, because the talent is out there.
For example, it is not beyond the range of possibility that former White Sox star Jose Abreu would be willing to play in the CPBL in 2025 for a three month $75K guarantee. He’d be good for the box office if nothing else.
Unless the CPBL changes its foreign player rule to mandate that each team must have at least one foreign hitter, we’re unlikely to see any foreign hitters staying in Taiwan on a long-term basis.
The TSG Hawks are an exception due to the expansion incentive, which allows them one extra foreign player (not all pitchers) for 2024 and 2025.
From a marketing perspective, unless the foreign hitter is a big name like Manny Ramirez or Robinson Cano, it will be very difficult to make it work financially as in a way to pull in the crowds.
Having a foreign hitter means a team must rely on its already weak domestic pitching staff to cover the 120-160 innings gap. Some teams may manage to handle it for one season, but their bullpen will eventually suffer and pay the price the following year.
I think we might see even less foreign reliever in 2025, there’s rumour the Guardians are not going to bring back Enderson Franco, they are going the “all starters” route. Same with the Uni-Lions, too.
The best scenario would be a rule allowing two foreign starters and one foreign hitter. Ultimately, though, this is a decision for the team owners to make collectively. I think the Hawks GM have proposed that in the GM meeting, but it was shot down by the other teams.
It does seem like foreign relievers have to pitch like Rio Gomez did in 2024 or Enderson Franco in 2023 to justify their roster spots. A shutdown closer can bring the right team a few extra wins, particularly good but the not great teams that play a lot of close games.