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Taiwan Baseball

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Taiwan Baseball
I assume the Taiwan Baseball League is considered a step down from Japan, but I have a few questions:

1. Are there quotas on Taiwan clubs as to how many American-born players can be on the roster?
2. What American players are playing in Taiwan?
3. More importantly, in the last ten years or so, have any American players who have played in Taiwan returned to MLB in the U.S. to continue playing?

Thanks.

GJ
Comments
Re: Taiwan Baseball
[ Author: westbaystars | Posted: Nov 28, 2001 11:44 PM | YBS Fan ]

- I assume the Taiwan Baseball League is considered a step down from Japan, but I have a few questions

I don't know much detail about Taiwanese baseball, so I'm not really qualified to say. But Taiwan did defeat Japan in the World Cup a short while ago, so I wouldn't write them off as a push over. There are, and have long been, several Taiwnese players playing in Japan, so they are definitly compatible.

1. Are there quotas on Taiwan clubs as to how many American-born players can be on the roster?

"American-born"? I hope you do include South America in that, as quite a few Latin American players do and have played in Taiwan. I've heard that there aren't any quotas, but again, I don't know for sure. Of course, since they don't pay as much as Japanese teams do for foreign players, that may have a natural effect to keep the number of foreign players low.

As for questions #2 and #3, I haven't the faintest idea. A good starting point might be this site which links to what appears to be two Taiwanese leagues. (I recognize the team logos on the first one, but not the second.) Of course, both sites appear to be written in Chinese only, so you'll have to be able to read Chinese to get much out of them. There was an English language Taiwanese baseball site a number of years ago, but it seems to have disappeared.

While I don't know if any players had migrated to the MLB, I can say that there have been many (mostly South American) players who have gone from Taiwan to Japan over the past 10 years. Former Yomiuri Giant Balvino Galvez was one of the more successful (when he didn't loose his cool, anyway).

Wish I could have been of more help. Do we have any Taiwanese baseball fans in the audience? Yin-san, are you still there? I hadn't heard from you in quite a while. This might be a good time.
Re: Taiwan Baseball
[ Author: Rocksfan | Posted: Nov 29, 2001 12:37 AM | CHU Fan ]

The International Section on the Baseball America website has some coverage of the Taiwanese leagues.

As stated before, there are two leagues, the Chinese Professional Baseball League and the Taiwan Major League. I think the CPBL has been around for something like 10 years, while the TML is about 5 years old.

As far as I know, no Taiwanese player from the CPBL or TML has gone to any North American teams. The handful of Taiwanese players in the US (Chin-Feng Chen, etc) were signed as amateurs and did not play professionally in Taiwan.
Re: Taiwan Baseball
[ Author: Dusanh | Posted: Nov 30, 2001 4:38 AM ]

> 1. Are there quotas on Taiwan clubs as to how many
> American-born players can be on the roster?
Yes there are quotas in both of the Taiwanese leagues. The quota used to be higher in Taiwan then in Japan. However, after the decline of interest due to gambling scandals, the leagues tried to use less foreign players hoping to generate more local interest.

> 2. What American players are playing in Taiwan?
I don't think there has ever been any famous ones.

> 3. More importantly, in the last ten years or so,
> have any American players who have played in Taiwan
> returned to MLB in the U.S. to continue playing?
Melvin Mora of Baltimore, Robinson Checo (also a former Hiroshima Carp) played with the Dodgers.

Regarding the comments about the level of the Taiwanese leagues...

During the golden era of Taiwanese baseball (early 90s), it was believed that the level is slightly below the Korean league but very close. However, the level right now is probably slightly better than the Japanese 2-gun.

Despite the less than stellar playing level of local leagues, there has been handful of exceptional talents that came out of Taiwan.

Arguably, the greatest pitcher in Taiwan's baseball history, Kuo Tai-Yuen (Kaku Taigen in Japanese), nicked named "Oriental Express" in the 84' Olympics, generated major league interests after striking out 12 against a US team that included Barry Larking, Will Clark, and Mark McGuire with fast balls in the upper 90s. He signed with the Seibu Lions and immediately dominated in 1985. Unfortunately, he lost 5-6 mph on his fastball after a shoulder injury and became more of a control pitcher in the 1990s. He still finished with over 100 wins.

Other players include Kaku Genji (100W & 100S with the Chunichi Dragons), and Taihoh Yasuaki (1994 CL HR & RBI king).

Also, the greatest hitter Japan has ever seen, Sadaharu Oh, is half Taiwanese.
Re: Taiwan Baseball
[ Author: Cub Fan | Posted: Nov 30, 2001 12:36 PM ]

ESPN.com has a list of all the MLB players and what countries they are born in. Go to ESPN.com, click on MLB, click on players, and click on the country that you wish to see. It will show you all the players born in that country that play in either the National or American League.
Taiwan baseball
[ Author: Guest: drunken~master | Posted: May 17, 2002 1:03 AM ]

In Asia, Taiwan, Japan, and Korea are considered as the top 3 baseball nations. The difference between them is not significant. Taiwan beats Korea and Japan sometimes, and vice versa. During the early '60s to '80s, Taiwan has been dominating in international baseball tournaments. Ranging from youth league to adult baseball. The famous Hong-Yeh baseball team also won more than 8 world championship.

When evaluating how good Taiwan baseball is, one must take this under consideration. Taiwan is a small island, a little bit smaller than the state of Massachusetts. 36220 sq km. The population is about 21 million. When you compare it to Japan, Korea, or the US, it is a miracle how Taiwan manages to defeat Japan, Korea, etc.
Re: Taiwan baseball
[ Author: Guest: Gary Garland | Posted: May 19, 2002 12:12 AM ]

The Taipei Times writes articles in english about baseball there 3-4 times a week and I usually post the links to those in my articles for Baseball Guru at: http://www.BaseballGuru.com

The above paper also has an extensive archive that you can access using the search engine on their site, which is at: http://www.taipeitimes.com if you want to do some trolling through their baseball stuff. Just use the word "baseball" as a search term.

One thing about their articles, however: they often have people who aren't as steeped in the sport as others, so they can read in a somehwat stilted manner at times.

As was alluded to earlier, some of the Taiwanese teams went out of business after the gambling scandal that almost killed the sport there. I think there is only one league now as a result, but not being knowledgeable about the baseball there, I don't know for sure. Taigen Kaku, iirc, is now an official with the Taiwan league.
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