CPBL Foreign Players Updates Volume #174
Wei Chuan Dragons News: 2 Unnamed Players
With Jake Brigham leaving for the KBO and Rosell Herrera not meeting the team’s expectation, the Dragons have been in the market searching for new foreign players. On April 23, the Wei Chuan Dragons told the media they are close to signing two new foreign players.
“Should be able to finalise the deal in the next two days,” the team told ETtoday. “We are aiming to add those them to our roster by the end of June.”
According to the Dragons’ manager, they are currently targeting one position player and one pitcher. The foreign hitter is an infielder that hit close to 100 career home runs in MLB.
As for the pitcher, he was invited to the big-league spring camp this season and had a decent performance. He is currently not in the 40-man roster, and the Dragons would need to buy out his contract from his MLB team.
Dragons Were Eyeing Yasiel Puig
As per the report on ETtoday, at one stage, the Dragons were considering signing Yasiel Puig. However, due to his previous history with the laws, the Dragons decided not to go ahead.
Under article 94 of the CPBL rulebook, based on Yasiel Puig’s eventful personal history, the league will most likely reject his contract should the Dragons sign him.
Article 94 stated the following: All players with previous criminal records, violent crime charges, game-fixing charges, or any misconducts that will damage the public image of the league will face immediate dismissal.
Earlier this year, the league rejected the Fubon Guardians’ contract with 33-year-old infielder Yamaico Navarro.
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 2021 CPBL season.
Herrera hasn’t hit with much power, but his .396 on-base percentage leads the Dragons. I guess the punchless Dragons feel they need a foreign position player to hit home runs.
Yeah, it is not easy being a foreign hitter in Taiwan. Also they are saying Herrera is not 100% healthy. Still dealing with a foot injury.
I note that the new, softer baseballs seem to be having an effect. 30 games into the season, and only three CPBL qualifying hitters are batting .300 or better, and no one appears to be on a pace to hit more than 25 home runs. The Dragons might want to give Herrera a longer look, at least until a new foreign signee serves out his two week quarantine and gets some playing time in CPBL’s minor league, before cutting Herrera loose.
Yeah, I don’t think they will cut him lose before the new foreign players are ready. I’m guessing the new foreign hitter is Justin Bour.
Oh, by the way, the Monkeys have reportedly signed a new player too. Rumour it’s Dylan Covey. But I guess we will wait for the official announcement.
The de-juiced ball basically cut the average OPS from insane .861 to more of a normal range of .689 ideally I am hoping they can get it to around .700 OPS. (This is the data comparing 2020-2021 first 50 games).
The KBO also went through the similar thing a few years ago with their de-juiced ball. They overall batting took a massive dip, but after 1 year of adjustment, it is slowly going above .700 OPS.
So maybe this will be the CPBL trend too.
Justin Bour makes sense, since he hit fairly well in NPB last year, and he certainly has power. Dylan Covey appears to still belong to the Red Sox, so he might require a buy-out.