CPBL Foreign Players Updates Volume #293
Wei Chuan Dragons News: Tucker Smith
On August 17, the Trois-Rivières Aigles announced on its social media platform that the Wei Chuan Dragons had purchased the contract of Tucker Smith from the Frontier League.
According to the Dragons GM, they are currently in the process of sorting out all the necessary paperwork, and Tucker Smith is likely to arrive in Taiwan next week.
“He has a pretty good command and a decent fastball, with his velocity topping out at 94 mph,” the Dragons manager told TSNA. “Our other foreign player Bryan Woodall’s condition is still not 100%. Therefore we need a backup plan before the August 31 trade deadline.”
Tucker Smith, the 26-year-old American right-hander, never entered the MLB system after graduating from university in 2021. Instead, he went down the indie ball route and pitched in the American Association and the Frontier League.
Leading to the signing with the Wei Chuan Dragons, Tucker Smith has compiled a solid 3.89 ERA and 1.28 WHIP over 113.1 innings in the Frontier League.
As of today, the Wei Chuan Dragons currently have Jake Brigham, Drew Gagnon, Bryan Woodall, Mitch Lambson and Tucker Smith as their foreign pitchers. The team must set their final four foreign players before August 31 to finish the 2023 CPBL season.
Our guy Tucker Smith doing what he does! Picked up the win last night going 5 innings while striking out 3 for the Lincoln Saltdogs 💪🏼 @T_raw947 #ProCanes pic.twitter.com/JwTPLw9mQv
— GSW Baseball (@GSW_Baseball) May 28, 2022
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.
I bet Tucker Smith signed cheap. I don’t have a problem with CPBL teams signing pitchers out of the Frontier League, but Smith would not have been my first choice.
It seems to me like this late in the 2023 season, CPBL teams should pretty much have their pick of any pitcher in the Frontier League, because players aren’t likely to be signed by an MLB organization this late in the season and the CPBL, even on a bargain $12K a month, pays a lot better than the Frontier League, where max salaries probably don’t top $1,800 or $2,000 a month. It’s possible, though, that some Frontier League pitchers would prefer to pitch in the Latin American winter leagues this year in the hope that if they pitch well there also an MLB organization will sign them.
Seems like a very strange signing. But I think you are right, maybe they can get him pretty cheap below the standard CPBL foreign player salary rate. And since they really need a backup plan in case Bryan Woodall is unable to pitch due to injury. As of right now, I don’t think Gagnon, Brigham and Lambson would lose their 1st team starting job to Tucker Smith.
This signing would also be a very interesting experiment. If Tucker Smith turns out to be decent, maybe we will see CPBL teams looking more into American Association and Frontier League for their 4th or 5th foreign players.
🤨 Good for you Tucker!!! you got this💪🏼👏🏻😊