CPBL Foreign Players Updates Volume #136
Uni-Lions News: Tim Melville
After weeks of guessing, CPBL fans finally learnt the identity of the Uni-Lions’ mystery foreign player. On July 12, ETtoday reported the Uni-Lions’ new foreign player is 30-year-old right-hander Tim Melville.
According to the Uni-Lions’ general manager, should everything goes smoothly, the new foreign pitcher will arrive in Taiwan next week. As always, anyone who comes to Taiwan would have to undergo a mandatory 14-day quarantine.
Tim Melville began his professional career with the Kansas City Royals in 2008 as their fourth-round draft pick. He eventually made his MLB debut in 2016 with the Reds and briefly pitched for the Twins and Padres the next year.
In 2019, the baseball journeyman split his time between the MLB and Triple-A. Melville posted a 4.86 ERA and 1.44 WHIP over 33.1 innings for the Colorado Rockies. While in the Triple-A, he went 5.42 ERA and 1.58 WHIP over 96.1 innings of work.
Tim Melville Pitching Repertoire
According to the data on Baseball Savant, Tim Melville throws the following pitches:
- Slider – 55% – 133kph
- Four-Seam Fastball – 34% – 143kph
- Changeup – 6% – 133kph
- Curve – 6% – 121kph
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 2020 CPBL season.
[…] deal with the Uni-Lions of Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League, per local reports (h/t to CPBL Stats). Colorado released the 30-year-old in […]
He should be an improvement over Darnell at least.
Yeah, would be a good upgrade. Darnell has a WHIP near 2.00
Melviile seems like a good choice. He’s pitched pretty well at the AAA level the last couple of seasons but he’s also spent time in the Atlantic League, suggesting that MLB organizations don’t appreciate what he can do.
I wish I had a better understanding of how pitchers like Melville and CPBL teams come together. I would guess that teams contact players they have been paying attention to. But I’d also guess that teams contact the players union, which send out notices to agents that x team is looking for a certain player – for CPBL pitcher – at certain money. Then players send back statement I’d be willing to pitch in Taiwan for CPBL money, and team starts negotiating for the 2-4 players they like best. But I am just speculating.
I think most of the CPBL teams they all got their “potential targets” for foreign players. So, either via their own international scouts, agent recommendation, coaching recommendation or “broker recommendation”.
But for the Uni-Lions’ case, I would leaning towards their international broker’s or agent’s recommendation. I think some CPBL teams also have good relationship with the coaches in the Atlantic League, so they sometime can get an recommendation too.
By the way, there are some rumours floating around a CPBL team is currently in talks with Yoanys Quiala.
Do you think there’s any likelihood that Yang Dai-Kang plays in the CPBL in 2021? Seems like the time is ripe.
If he did enter the 2021 CPBL draft what kind of deal would it take in your estimation?
Given his star power and if healthy enough, at least 334,000 USD per year. That should be the starting price.
It is really hard to say, I think he would probably prefer to stay in Japan as a coach instead of coming back to Taiwan. But I think after his stint with the Giants, he can probably get another playing contract with other organisation. You have to remember, he is considered as a domestic player in the NPB and he speaks Japanese fluently.