The Best Foreign Pitchers in CPBL History: 2021-2022 Update

This is the post-2021 season update on an article I first published four years ago. 

WINS

1.      Osvaldo (Ozzy) Martinez  108-85     MiLB, WiL Stats and more MiLB Stats

2.     Mike Loree                97-70     MiLB, Indy-A stats

3.     Jonathan Hurst        76-52     MLB, NPB, MiLB Stats

4.      Jose Nunez                62-30*     MLB, NPB, KBO, etc Stats

5.      John Burgos             58-34     MiLB, Indy-A Stats

6.      Mark Kiefer             55-27     MLB, MiLB, KBO stats

7. Bryan Woodall 54-47

8.      Don August               52-48*   MLB, MiLB Stats

9.     Joe Strong                  47-33     MLB, MiLB, Indy-A Stats

10.     Orlando Roman       44-28     MiLB, NPB Stats, WiL

11.     Gabriel “Gab” Ozuna     43-39     MiLB Stats

Martinez, Loree and Hurst are the only long-term veterans among pitchers I could find in my search of the CPBL website.  Martinez pitched nine seasons, Loree has now pitched nine, and Hurst pitched seven.  Loree will be returning for at least one more season in 2022.  Burgos had a terrific 4.5 seasons, Kiefer had four terrific seasons, and Nunez had an even-better-than-either three seasons.  Kiefer won 34 KBO games over three seasons later in his career.

Mike Loree is the most successful foreign pitcher currently pitching in CPBL or since Oswaldo Martinez’s and Jonathan Hurst’s CPBL careers ended after the 2005 season.  Loree had a hard luck 2021 campaign, going 7-9 in spite of a 3.03 ERA, the circuit’s fourth best (there were only seven qualifiers, as relief pitching is overtaking the game everywhere).  Loree will almost certainly return to Taiwan for another CPBL season in 2022. I was disappointed Mike didn’t win his 100th CPBL game this year, but he’s likely to do it in 2022, when he will also likely set the all-time CPBL career strikeout record.

Bryan Woodall broke onto the all-time wins list with a comeback season to remember. Woodall went a dreadful combined 4-21 in 2019-2020 with a combined ERA close to 6.00. I thought the expansion Wei-Chuan Dragons were making a big mistake bringing Woodall back for his age 34 season. Bryan sure proved me wrong. He went 12-5 for an expansion team, getting the run support Mike Loree didn’t, and Woodall’s 2.90 ERA was third best in league. Woodall’s strikeout rate was not impressive, but he cut down on the hits and home runs that plagued him in 2019-2020. I still think Woodall will regress to his mean in 2022, but it’s all but certain the Dragons will bring him back for another season after his 2021 success.

Joe Strong was a 37 year old MLB rookie in 2000 for the Florida Marlins, but he pitched better in the Show in limited use in 2001.  He pitched professionally through his age 41 season.

* Jose Nunez and Don August both later pitched a season in Taiwan’s other major league, the Taiwan Major League (TML).  Don August only won 18 games in the CPBL, but he then went went 34-30 in the TML, the same as his career MLB major league record.  The CPBL counts TML stats for purposes of career records, but unfortunately does not publish the TML records on its website, making it very difficult for a non-Mandarin speaker to obtain these records.  Thanks to Rob over at CPBL STATS for providing the TML stats necessary to make this post as accurate as possible.

ERA   (650 IP)

1.      Jose Nunez             2.18

2.     Jonathan Hurst        2.56

3.     Joe Strong               2.71

4.     Mark Kiefer              2.82

5.     John Burgos             2.84

6.     Gab Ozuna               3.16

7.     Osvaldo Martinez    3.20

7.     Enrique Burgos     3.20     MLB, MiLB Stats 

9.     Mike Loree             3.35

10.  Don August              3.49

11.    Orlando Roman     3.78

I set the 650 IP limit because I wanted to include Jose Nunez (687 CPBL innings, but he topped 700 with TML innings included) and Orlando Roman (691).  Nunez won 56 games over three seasons, before moving on to greener Japanese NPB pastures.  As mentioned above, he returned to pitch in the TML in 1998, during that competitor league’s six-year history before it folded/merged into the CPBL after the 2002 season.

In this extreme hitter-friendly era of the CPBL, Mike Loree’s and Orlando Roman’s higher ERAs are at least equivalent to what the best foreign pitchers accomplished in different, less offensive eras than the one the prevailed until the CPBL softened its baseballs last off-season.  I base this claim on their W-L records, the fact that Loree has been arguably the league’s best pitcher in each of his first six full CPBL seasons, and the fact that Roman used the CPBL as a springboard to a four-year NPB career, where he won a total of 18 games and saved another six, before returning to CPBL in 2016.  Alas, Roman’s CBPL career ended after the 2017 season, but he continued to pitch in Puerto Rico’s winter league past his 40th birthday.

STRIKEOUTS

1.     Ozzie Martinez      1,286

2.     Mike Loree             1,215

3.     Jonathan Hurst      779

4.     Enrique Burgos      736

5.     Michael “Mike” Garcia      651     MLB, MiLB, KBO etc Stats

6. Bryan Woodall 610    

7. Orlando Roman    564

8.     Jose Nunez            545

9.     John Burgos          541

10.     Mark Kiefer           532

11.    Gab Ozuna           508

Enrique Burgos had some of the best strikeout stuff CPBL had ever seen, but it didn’t translate into his W-L record.  He finished his CPBL career an even 36-36.

Ozzy Martinez is the CPBL’s career strikeouts leader.  Mike Loree is now a knocking-at-the-door second, and all-time CPBL wins leader Pan Wei-lun is currently third with 1,149 careers K’s (to go with his 146 career wins).

SAVES

1.     Mike Garcia             124

2.     Ryan Cullen           70     MiLB, Indy-A, WiL Stats

3.     Brad Thomas        59     MLB, NPB, KBO etc Stats

3.     Brandy Vann         59     MiLB, Indy-A Stats

5.     Alfornio (“Al”) Jones     50     MLB, MiLB Stats

6.   Dario Veras           49     MLB, MiLB, KBO etc Stats 

6.   Tony Metoyer       49     MiLB, Indy-A Stats

Mike Garcia is far and away the best foreign closer in CPBL history, and certainly one of the best in league history overall, second only in career saves to Yueh-Ping Lin.  He pitched five seasons in Taiwan (1996-1998, 2004-2005) in between which he was a 31 year old MLB rookie for the 1999 Pittsburgh Pirates.  His career CPBL ERA is an even 2.00.  He last pitched professionally at age 39.

Ryan Cullen pitched 3+ seasons in Taiwan, saving a then record-setting 34 games for the Brother Elephants in 2010 and recording a career CPBL ERA of 1.60.  Cullen is best remembered for his final CPBL game, when he threw a pitch, felt pain in his throwing shoulder, and walked off the mound and off the field without motioning to the dugout and waiting for the manager to take him out of the game.  He was released the next day.

Cullen said he didn’t intend to disrespect anyone, but it does not appear that he ever played professional baseball again.  Since he was only 32 and still pitching effectively at the time of his release, I suspect that he either just decided that he’d had enough of pro ball or the injury he suffered that caused him to walk off the field was more serious than it looked in the video of it I’ve seen. People are more sympathetic when you grab your arm and fall on the ground like you’ve just been shot.

Brad Thomas is an Aussie who pitched professionally in at least seven countries on four continents, concluding his baseball odyssey with 2.5 seasons in Taiwan.  Tony Metoyer pitched parts of seven seasons in the CPBL, where he was used as both a closer and spot starter.

Brandy Vann was a former 1st round MLB draft pick by the Angels.  He had good stuff, but not enough command to reach the MLB majors.  He pitched three years in the CPBL, followed by two more in the TML.  Vann may well be the first foreign player signed by a CPBL team out of an Independent-A league, something that happens all the time today.

2021 saw the return of foreign relievers to CPBL in a big way. Junichi Tazawa saved a second best in league 30 games, and Bradin Hagens saved nine.  Werner Madrigal saved 16 games for the 7-11 Uni-Lions as recently as 2015, and in 2014 Miguel Mejia saved a record-setting 35 games and posted a 1.24 ERA for the Lamigo Monkeys, although that record was bested in 2017 by Chen Yu-Hsun, who recorded 37 saves for a Lamigo Monkeys team that set a league record for wins in a season.  However, a five-year stretch followed in which CPBL teams decided (for the most part correctly IMHO) that starting pitchers are just too valuable for their three available foreign player roster spaces, even though there are almost always some good relievers in the Mexican League to choose from.

2021 featured an expansion team that figured it might squeeze out a few more wins if it signed a legitimate foreign closer like Tazawa, and Covid (and the quarantine period for people entering Taiwan) meant that it was hard to timely find replacements for foreign starters who weren’t effective as starters, and so CPBL teams used these already on-hand foreigners as relievers with generally greater success.

It’s hard for a foreign player to have a long career in the CPBL.  If the player has a bad year or even a bad half-season (most foreigners initially receive half-season contracts), he’s too expensive to keep around and too easily replaced.  There are a lot of players of the age and talent level to whom the CPBL salary scale is highly appealing, so CPBL teams can pick and choose their foreign players. 

That was particularly true in 2020 with no minor league, Atlantic League or Mexican League baseball due to Covid-19 and was still generally true in 2021, although as mentioned above it was harder to replace players in season in 2021 due to the Covid quarantine.  CPBL teams also showed a willingness to spend more money on the best available foreign pitchers starting in 2020, which means the league’s teams may be able to hold on to some of the better pitchers they signed this season going forward.

If a foreign player has a great full season or two, he typically moves on to NPB, KBO or back to MLB AAA.  League ace Jose De Paula will return for his age 34 season in 2022, but I fully expect the CPBL’s second ace Brock Dykxhoorn to return to the KBO in 2022 following a great season at age 26 and the 2021 KBO success of 2020 CPBLers Ariel Miranda and Ryan Carpenter.

In its early days, the CPBL appears to have recruited heavily among Latin American players who put up successful seasons in the winter leagues, which makes a lot of sense, since the Latin American winter leagues are pretty good and pay accordingly.  After the CPBL season expanded gradually from 90 to 120 games, fewer Latin players may have been willing to play in Taiwan, because it interferes with their ability to play a full season of winter league ball in their home countries.  However, the 2020 season saw the return of Latin American pitchers in a big way.  Jose De Paula, Henry Sosa, Esmil Rodgers, Ariel Miranda, Lisalverto Bonilla and Manny Banuelos were all major contributors to CPBL teams in 2020/2021.  I tend to think that players from Latin American countries are a good bet for Asian baseball because they have already had the experience of playing baseball in a foreign country at a high level by virtue of having played in the MLB system.

In recent years, the independent-A Atlantic League has been a major source for CPBL teams looking for in-season pitching help, and the (summer) Mexican League has been a prime source particularly for off-season signings. 

The 2021 KBO Regular Season That Was

The two big pieces of news from the 2021 KBO regular season were that former Seattle Mariner and SoftBank Hawk Ariel Miranda set the single-season record with 225 Ks (in 173.2 IP) and Choi Jeung became the second KBO player to hit 400 HRs.

I still suspect Choi got cheated out of his chance at playing in MLB, but he now has a reasonable shot at the all-time KBO HR record which would make him a legend in South Korea. Lee Seung-Yuop is the current all-time leader at 467, plus another 159 in NPB. Choi is going into his age 35 season, but at age 34 he blasted 35 taters, his .972 OPS was second best in the Circuit, and he has three years left of his precedent-setting six-year guarantee with the now SSG Landers, so he and the team are committed to breaking the record.

Kang Baek-Ho‘s .971 OPS was KBO third best, and he’s going into his fifth-full KBO season at age 22 in ’22. He looks like a future MLBer if he stays healthy.

CF Lee Jung-hoo‘s .960 OPS was KBO fourth best, and he’ll be entering his age 23 season in ’22 with five full KBO seasons under his belt, so he is a real MLB prospect too.

My admittedly cursory revue of the final pitching stats indicated there are no South Korean pitching prospects of particular note at this moment and that Miranda might be the best bet to return to MLB if an MLB team is willing to guarantee at least $1.5 million with a shot at fifth starter for his tremendous 2021 performance – Miranda went 14-5 with a league-leading 2.33 ERA, aside from the Ks records.

The KBO’s 2021 starting pitching stats were dominated by foreigners, none of whom based on age and performance is as good a bet as Miranda for 2022 MLB purposes.

The Only Game in Town

Professional baseball is back — in Taiwan.

We are now six games into the 2020 CPBL season with the games being played in empty stadiums but broadcast on TV.  It is surely better than nothing for a baseball hungry world.

The best game pitched so far was former New York Yankee and half-season KBO ace Esmil Rogers‘ effort earlier today.  He allowed one run, earned, on six hits and a walk in seven innings pitched with 11 strikeouts.

I had questions about how Rogers would pitch in the extremely hitter friendly CPBL.  Despite the past KBO success, he’s now 34 and got hit pretty hard in the Mexican League in 2019, which was also an extreme hitters’ league.  CPBL teams love foreign pitchers with a history of success in the KBO and/or NPB, and so far so good for Rogers.

Former Seattle Mariner and SoftBank Hawk Ariel Miranda and former Toronto Blue Jay and KBO ace Ryan Feierabend both looked good on opening day, but neither reached the seventh inning nor got a decision.  Former San Francisco Giants farmhand, brief Houston Astro and former KBO ace Henry Sosa looked good in his first CPBL start of the young CPBL season, allowing one run in 7 IP on four hits and a walk while striking out five.

[Kudos to baseballreference.com — they are publishing CPBL stats for the first time this season — maybe my two emails over the last three or four years had some effect… but probably not, at least not by themselves.]

CPBL teams decided to spend more money on the four foreign pitchers each of the league’s four franchises can sign (three on the major league squad and one in the minors, with the ability to promote and demote foreign players without having to release someone for the first time this season) this past off-season.  CPBL teams decided to do this in part to get more attention from the baseball world, but more because the Lamigo (now Rakuten) Monkeys have completely dominated the league the last few seasons because they have a disproportionate share of the best Taiwanese hitters.  The other three teams realized the only way they can compete is by spending more money to get better foreign pitchers.

Even though the CPBL is going to lose money this season because fans probably won’t be attending any games this year, as the only pro game in the world as I write this post, teams’ decisions to spend more money to put on a better product may well pay dividends when a coronavirus vaccine becomes widely available.

The best game pitched by a Taiwanese starter so far is the three earned run, six inning outing with seven Ks thrown by the Brothers’ Huang Enci (黃恩賜) — the translations provided by Google Translate for Chinese names are not necessarily the conventional ones.  He’s 24 this year and appears to be a work in progress.

33 year old former Cleveland Indian C.C. Lee has six Ks in 3.1 innings pitched in two relief appearances, but he’s also blown a save, which happens a lot in the CPBL.  21 year old rookie (he pitched 18.2 innings CPBL major league innings across 16 relief appearances last season) Wu Jun-wei (吳俊偉) has struck out seven in three scoreless relief innings

Former Detroit Tiger Ryan Carpenter and former Padre/Mariner/Cub Donn Roach got hit pretty hard in their first ever CPBL starts.  I had my doubts about the Roach signing after a rough 2019 AAA International League season, but one start doesn’t prove much.

The big story at the plate so far is last season’s home run champ Chu Yu-Hsien (朱育賢), who hit five home runs in his first two games this season and is currently batting .692 (9 for 13) with a 2.538 OPS.  Aside from his league leading 30 dingers last season, he batted .347 with a .605 slugging percentage, which were only good enough for fifth and fourth best respectively, in the hit-happy 4-team circuit.  Here’s video of two of his 2020 home runs.

It’s worth noting that the Monkeys have scored 9, 15 and 11 runs in their three 2020 games so far.  Not surprisingly, they are 3-0 in spite of having allowed 8 and 10 runs in two of the games.  You know what they say — the best defense is a good offense.

Salaries Up for Foreign Pitchers in Taiwan’s CPBL

The elect few who read my blog with any regularity know that I like to write about the salary scales throughout the world of professional baseball.  Free agent contracts are up in MLB and NPB this off-season.  KBO contracts for foreign “mercenaries” are definitely down.

Salaries in Asia’s smallest major league are way up for at least a few foreign pitchers.

Until this off-season, new foreign pitchers to the CPBL typically received three or four month guarantees ranging from about $50,000 to $100,000.  So, roughly a little over $15,000 to about $25,000 per month, and not for an entire season.  Rob over at CPBL Stats has been opining for the last year or so that CPBL teams could afford to pay one of their three foreign major leaguers roughly $50,000 a month to start.  It looks like he’s been proven right this off-season.

It took the right sequence of events to move CPBL teams out of their comfort zone, and that sequence happened this off-season.  Last off-season, former KBO star Henry Sosa got dumped by the LG Twins, as a result of the fact that Sosa was getting older and was expensive, and KBO teams pay enough for 4-A pitchers that it’s extremely easy for them to find replacement foreigners who are at least average KBO starters.  Sosa signed on with the Fubon Guardians and completely dominated the CPBL with his big fastball and veteran experience until the Guardians sold him back to the KBO at mid-season, probably due to a clause in Sosa’s contract with the Guardians that required the transfer if a KBO team came calling.

Sosa pitched well in the KBO’s 2019 second-half, but again got squeezed this off-season.  Having proven his value to CPBL teams, the Guardians offered him something like $50K per month for a full CPBL season, which has led to reports that reports that Sosa will earn $500K to $600K in 2020.  In any event, Sosa will probably earn no less than $400K pitching in the CPBL in 2020, when taking into account post-game performance bonuses and other emoluments.  Unfortunately, CPBL teams, like NPB teams, are not at all transparent about player salaries.

The signing of Sosa for big money (by CPBL standards) has unlocked CPBL wallets, or at least the wallet of what is probably the 4-team circuit’s wealthiest team, the China Trust Brothers.  The Brothers signed former SoftBank Hawk and Seattle Mariner starter Ariel Miranda for similar money to Sosa, which was what was reasonably necessary for a CPBL team to beat out small revenue NPB and KBO teams like, for example, the Chiba Lotte Marines.

Then, the Brothers went out and guaranteed roughly $125,000 for three or four months to Esmil Rogers, who pitched very effectively for parts of three seasons in the KBO, has significant MLB major league experience, and is coming off a strong winter league season in his home Dominican Republic.  It’s a lot of money for a pitcher entering his age 34 season with no other likely 2020 option than MLB AAA or the Mexican League, but Rogers has the back-story CPBL teams love.

The Brothers are trying to keep pace with Guardians, who also re-signed CPBL Ace Mike Loree, and the hot-hitting Rakuten Monkeys, who are presumably going to have more money to spend on foreign pitchers since the sale by Lamigo to Rakuten.  Also, the expansion Wei Chuan Dragons, who start major league play in 2021, are already showing signs they will spend big on foreign pitchers next off-season in order to get competitive in a hurry.  Add to that the fact that the Brothers’ 2019 foreign starters, paid in line with last year’s CPBL salary scale, were as a group well less than adequate.

I also think that new roster rules for foreign players is having an effect on salaries.  Before 2020, teams could have three foreign players (in practice, all starting pitchers) on their major league rosters, and typically at least three of the four CPBL teams would keep a fourth foreign pitcher on hand at the minor league level.  However, in order to call up the fourth pitcher in the minors, one of the team’s three major league foreigners had to be released.  Starting in 2020, teams will be able to transfer foreign major leaguers to the minors and call up the foreign minor leaguer with the only restriction that the first pitcher can’t be recalled for 15 days.

The Brothers have, in addition to Sosa and Rogers, re-signed Mitch Lively and brought in fourth foreign pitcher, Dominican Jose De Paula.  This probably means that De Paula, a pitcher of the type CPBL teams in the past signed to pitch at the major league level, will start in the CPBL minor league and wait for one of the other three starters to get hurt or pitch ineffectively.  De Paula’s signing is going to put pressure on the other three CPBL teams to sign a better class of 4th foreign pitchers.

As with all things in professional baseball, little is set in stone when it comes to spending money, and we’re going to have to see if bringing in a better and better paid class of foreign pitchers has an effect on CPBL attendance, which, frankly, isn’t what it should be given baseball’s popularity in Taiwan and the size of Taiwan’s major urban areas.

Also, most of the foreign pitchers signed for the 2020 season are over age 30, which means that a fair number of them will be injured during the season.  If the higher paid foreigners bomb or flame out, there won’t be as much incentive to repeat the experiment in 2021.  I do think, though, that expansion in 2021 will add some excitement for the league and unlock some wallets.

If CPBL teams are willing to compete with small market KBO and NPB teams for at least one foreign starting pitcher per team, the CPBL will get better, and we’ll see more movement of foreign pitchers between the CPBL and the other Asian majors.  I’m excited about that prospect.

More Asian Comings and Goings

In terms of players moving between MLB and the Asian majors, the biggest news since my last post on the subject is that slugging 1Bman Justin Bour will be playing for the Hanshin Tigers of Japan’s NPB in 2020.  No word yet on what Hanshin will be paying him, but it’s likely for a guarantee of over $1 million, given Bour’s major league pedigree.

I don’t think it’s necessarily a great signing by Hanshin.  Bour is entering his age 32 seasons, and players of his talent level and size (he’s listed at 6’4″ and 270 lbs).  His 2018 season was a big step down from 2015-2017, and in 2019 he played his way out of a major league contract for 2020.

Bour also has a big career platoon split, which helped make him a useful major league platoon player, but which doesn’t bode well for Japan, where he will expected to play every day for the money he’s getting.  If Bour can hit NPB right-handers well enough to stick, it may just be a matter of time before we see him getting a day off to “rest” every time Hanshin faces a tough lefty starter.

The Hiroshima Carp have signed South African born Tayler Scott to a deal that pays him a $175K signing bonus and a $525K salary, which may or may not be guaranteed.  Scott has major league stuff, but not major league command — sometimes these kind of pitchers do very well in NPB, where the margin for error is greater than the MLB majors.

Drew VerHagen and Aderlin Rodriguez are two more MLB system products who will be playing in NPB next year.  VerHagen has enjoyed some MLB major league success and should be a good bet to perform well for the Nippon Ham Fighters in 2020.  Aderlin Rodriguez is something of a bargain-basement player for a bargain-basement team, the Orix Buffaloes.

Rumors have it that Pierce Johnson and Joely Rodriguez will be returning to MLB for 2020, at least if they get the contract offers they are hoping for.  IMHO they are both likely to receive major league contract offers.

The SK Wyverns of the KBO will be posting South Korean ace Kwang-hyun Kim.  You may remember that Kim was posted a few years’ back, but failed to reach agreement with the winning bidder, the San Diego Padres, and returned to South Korea.  Kim then promptly tore his elbow tendon and missed a season.

Since then, Kim has firmly re-established himself as one of the KBO’s two best domestic starters, and he wants to give MLB another shot, although he’s already 31 years old.  Reports have it that MLB teams are interested, but we’ll see what kinds of offers he gets or doesn’t get.

New MLB system players who will be plying there trade in the KBO in 2020 are Aaron Altherr, Mike Wright, Adrian Sampson, Dixon Machado and Nick Kingham.  The NC Dinos signed both Altherr and Wright and is giving them the best deals so far for first year foreign KBOers this off-season — both Altherr and Wright will reportedly receive $200K signing bonuses and $800K guaranteed salaries, which is the most they can make under the league’s salary cap.  Nick Kingham will also reportedly receive a $900K guarantee, although $200K of that is for a team option for 2021, most likely also for $900K, so if things go right for Kingham and the SK Wyverns, he’ll earn $1.6M over two seasons.

Meanwhile, the low-budget Kiwoom Heroes re-signed pitcher Eric Jokisch for a second KBO season at a modest $700K max, which includes have-to-earn-’em performance incentives.  No one ever said life was fair.

Milwaukee Brewers Decline Eric Thames’ $7.5 Million Option

In a move that caught my attention, the Brewers declined Eric Thames‘ $7.5 million option for 2020, instead electing to pay Thames a $1M buy-out.  In other words, it was a $6.5M decision, which is surprising only in that fangraphs valued Thames’ 2019 performance at $15.4M, his three year contribution under his current contract at $39.8M and never less than the $7.2M fangraphs says he was worth in 2018.

Of course, the Brewers could well value Thames’ contribution differently, and Thames will be going into his age 33 season in 2020.  Thames strikes out a lot, can’t hit lefties, and doesn’t have any defensive value.  He does, however, draw walks and hit for power, two skills that tend to age well.  The Brewers have also made the play-offs the last two seasons, presumably at least in part due to Thames’ contributions.  It’s strange that they would consider $6.5M too much for Thames’ services in 2020.

The Brewers have already made it known that they might be willing to take Thames back at a lower price than $6.5M.  Clearly, the team doesn’t seem to think anyone else will offer Thames a one-year $6.5M deal.  I, however, would be surprised if at least one team did not offer Thames at least $5M for 2020.  Jose Abreu will also be 33 in 2020 and hasn’t been significantly more productive the last two seasons than Thames, but baseball reference still predicts Abreu will get two years and $28M this off-season, not to mention the fact that the ChiSox have already made Abreu a $17.8M qualifying offer.  Further, baseball ref predicts that Edwin Encarnacion, going into his age 37 season, will get an $8M contract for 2020.

Paired up with a right-handed hitting slugger who pounds lefties, Thames would be a bargain at $5M.

For MLB as a whole, there is relatively little down-side for owners to non-tender players whom they might like to bring back at a lower price.  The Braves also rejected Julio Teheran’s $12M option in favor of a $1M buyout, but have suggested they might also be willing to re-sign Teheran at a lower price.  Given Teheran’s age and relative effectiveness in 2019, though, I’d be surprised if he does not get a two-year offer from someone else for significantly more than $11M.

The advantage to non-tendering players is that more players on the open market drives down their prices as a basic matter of supply and demand.  The more teams non-tender close calls like Thames and Teheran, the less teams will likely have to pay for them or their replacements.  The Brewers’ decision to non-tender Thames seems like clear evidence that the Brewers think this will be another tough off-season for free agents, because even one-dimensional players with .850 OPS numbers are hard to come by.

Although Milwaukee is a small market, the Brewers were 8th in attendance in 2019 and 10th in both 2017 and 2018, as they have fielded winning teams the last three seasons, again in some part due to Thames.  The fact that they see Thames as too great an investment at $6.5M suggests the Brewers know something about the current market for free agents that the general public doesn’t.

Top MLB Prospects in South Korea’s KBO 2019/2020

As was the case last off-season, there aren’t many 2019 KBO players likely to join MLB in 2020.  We had a flurry of hitters a few years ago who got their shots at MLB, but they have mostly returned to the KBO and are too old to be reasonably likely to return to the States.

The best starter in the KBO for the second year in a row was foreigner Josh Lindblom.  He went 20-3 with a 2.50 ERA and 189 Ks in 194.2 IP.  He led the KBO in wins, winning percentage, innings pitched, and strikeouts and finished 2nd in ERA.

Given Merrill Kelly‘s success with the Diamondbacks in 2019, it’s certainly possible that an MLB team will offer Lindblom a similar two-year $5.5M contract.  However, Lindblom is going into his age 33 season in 2020, so he may already be too old to interest an MLB team, in spite of the fact that he enjoyed some MLB success before he went to South Korea a few years ago.

I’m also kind of hoping Lindblom signs the first two-year guaranteed deal for a foreigner in KBO history this off-season, maybe $3.5M guaranteed and another $500,000 in possible performance incentives.  KBO attendance was down in 2019, but Lindblom’s team, the Doosan Bears, is the one KBO team that could readily afford the risk of a two-year deal.

Kim Kwang-hyun and Yang Hyun-jong continued to be the KBO’s two best domestic starters in 2019, but their windows for moving up to MLB appear to have passed.

Cho Sang-Wo (26) reportedly has the KBO’s best fastball, which touched 97.7 mph early in the 2019 season.  He had a 2.66 ERA as a reliever in 2019 and has struck out 283 batters in 281.1 career KBO IP.  Shim Chang-min (27) has a live arm (474 Ks in 409.2 career KBO IP) and plenty of KBO service time, but not the level of KBO success to suggest MLB teams would be particularly interested in him.

Youngsters Ko Woo-seok (21) and Koo Chang-Moo (23) look very promising.  In his age 20 season, Ko posted a 1.52 ERA and 35 saves, while striking out 76 batters in 71 IP.  As a 22 year old starter, Koo went 10-7 with a 3.20 ERA and 114 Ks in 107 IP.  Both are many seasons away from being posted, however.

Among position players/hitters, no KBOer is jumping to MLB for at least a couple of years, but there are three very promising youngsters.

After a tremendous age 19 season, Kang Baek-ho (20) looks like the best hitting prospect since Lee Dae-ho or Kang Jung-ho.  Kang Baek-ho slashed .336/.419/.495, giving him the 10-team circuit’s 5th best batting average, 2nd best OBP, and 8th best SLG.  Extremely impressive for an age 19 season.  He’s listed at 6’0″ and 215 lbs and does not appear to be particularly fast, so there may be some question regarding how well he runs when it’s time for him to be posted.

It also does not appear that young Kang has performed his two years of required military service, which could be an issue later on.  The two years of mandatory military service in South Korea is a real killer when it comes to South Korean KBO players making the jump to MLB.

In his third KBO season, Lee Jung-hoo (22) slashed .336/.388/.456.  While that is down from his 2018 numbers, league offense was down even more, so 2019 probably represented continued incremental improvement.   In particular, he showed greater power potential this year. Both Lee and young Kang are corner outfielders, so they’ll have to hit to reach the MLB majors some day.

SS Kim Ha-seong (24) slashed .307/.394/.491 in 2019, a definite improvement from 2018, not taking into account the KBO’s drop in offense due to less resilient baseballs introduced in 2019.  Kim has five years of KBO service through his age 23 season, so if he can play MLB average defense at SS, 2B or even 3B, he should be an MLB major league player two or three years from now.

Catcher Yoo Kang-nam (27) has five years of KBO service time through his age 26 season.  If his defense is good, he has a chance to be an MLB major leaguer, also in two or three years’ time.

Is It Worth Tanking to Improve Your MLB Draft Position?

My team, the SF Giants, are currently in line to get either the 13th or 14th pick in the 2020 June Draft.  Gints fans will remember that the team made deals at the trade deadline, but they were kind of push.  The team sold on a couple of relievers, but also made trades designed to help the team going forward in 2019.  The Gints still had an outside shot at making the play-offs at the trade deadline, and they play in a market large enough to make total rebuilds relatively expensive.

Is it worth tanking, at least once the team has realized it has no reasonable chance of making the post-season, in order to get a higher selection in the next MLB draft?

I looked at the first twelve draft picks from the June drafts starting with 1987 (the first year the June draft was the only MLB amateur draft conducted for the year) through 2009 (which is long enough ago that we should now know whether the players drafted were major league success stories).  Suffice it say, with the first 12 draft picks of each June draft, the team imagines it has drafted a future major league star in compensation for sucking ass the previous season.

In order to keep things simple, I used baseball reference’s career WAR totals to determine whether each drafted player was a major league success.  Not precise, I’ll admit, since what drafting teams really care about is the first six-plus major league seasons of control.  However, I don’t know how to create a computer program to figure out the years-of-control WAR for each drafted player, and I’m not sure I’d be willing to spend the time to do so even if I knew how.  Career WAR seems a close enough approximation.

Also, for purposes of my study, no player is considered to have lower than a 0 career WAR — you cannot convince me that a drafted player who never reaches the majors is worth more than a drafted player who played in the majors but had a negative career WAR.  A player reaches and plays in the majors 9 times out of 10 because he is the best player available at that moment to take the available roster spot.  The tenth time, he is worth trying to develop as a major league player because of his potential upside.

As a result, I did not bother with averages.  Instead, I looked at median performances (i.e., for the 23 players picked at each of the first 12 draft slots during the relevant period, 11 players had a higher career WAR and 11 players had a lower career WAR than the median player.

Also, if a player was drafted more than once in the top 12, because he didn’t sign the first time drafted, I still counted him as his career WAR for each time he was drafted.

Here we go:

1st Overall Pick.  Median player:  Ben McDonald (1989, 20.8 Career WAR).  Best Players drafted with the No. 1 pick: Alex Rodriguez (1993, 117.8 career WAR); Chipper Jones (1990, 85.3 WAR); Ken Griffey, Jr. (1987, 83.8 WAR).  Odds of drafting a 15+ WAR player = 61%.  [Examples of 15+ WAR players are Mike Lieberthal (15.3 WAR); Gavin Floyd (15.6 WAR); Eric Hosmer (15.7+ WAR); and Phil Nevin (15.9 WAR).]  Odds of drafting a 10+ WAR player = 65%.  [Examples of 10+ WAR players are Rocco Baldelli (10.2 WAR); Shawn Estes (10.4 WAR); Todd Walker (10.5 WAR)  ; and Doug Glanville (10.9 WAR).]  Odds of drafting a 5+ WAR player = 70%.  [Examples of 5+ WAR players are John Patterson (5.0 WAR); Mike Pelfrey (5.3 WAR); Billy Koch (5.4 WAR); and Sean Burroughs (5.5 WAR).]

2nd Overall Pick.  Median player: Dustin Ackley (2009, 8.1 WAR).  Best Players drafted with the No. 2 pick: Justin Verlander (2004, 70.8+ WAR); J.D. Drew (1997, 44.9 WAR).  Odds of drafting a 15+ WAR player = 35%.  Odds of drafting a 10+ WAR player = 43%.  Odds of drafting a 5+ WAR player = 70%.

3rd Overall Pick.  Median player:  Philip Humber (2004, 0.9 WAR).  Best Players drafted at No. 3: Evan Longoria (2006, 54.2+ WAR); Troy Glaus (1997, 38.0 WAR).  15+ WAR player = 22%.  10+ WAR player = 35%.  5+ WAR player = 43%.

4th Overall Pick.  Median player: Tim Stauffer (2003, 3.8 WAR).  Best Players drafted at No. 4: Ryan Zimmerman (2005, 37.7+ WAR); Alex Fernandez (1990, 28.4 WAR).  15+ WAR player = 17%.  10+ WAR player = 26%.  5+ WAR player = 39%.

5th Overall Pick.  Median player: zero value.  Best players drafted at No. 5: Mark Teixeira (2001, 51.8 WAR); Ryan Braun (2005, 47.7+ WAR).  15+ WAR player = 30%.  10+ WAR player = 35%.  5+ WAR player = 39%.

6th Overall Pick.  Median player: zero value.  Best players drafted at No. 6: Derek Jeter (1992, 72.6 WAR); Zack Greinke (2002, 71.3+ WAR).  15+ WAR player = 9%.  10+ WAR player = 13%.  5+ WAR player = 26%.

7th Overall Pick.  Median player: Calvin Murray (1992, 2.1 WAR).  Best players drafted at No. 7: Frank Thomas (1989, 73.9 WAR); Clayton Kershaw (2006, 67.6+ WAR).  15+ WAR player = 30%.  10+ WAR player = 39%.  5+ WAR player = 48%.

8th Overall Pick.  Median player: zero value.  Best players drafted at No. 8: Todd Helton (1995, 61.2 WAR); Jim Abbott (1988, 19.6 WAR).  15+ WAR player = 13%.  10+ WAR player = 26%.  5+ WAR player = 39%.

9th Overall Pick.  Median player: Aaron Crow (2008, 2.6 WAR).  Best players drafted at No. 9:  Kevin Appier (1987, 54.5 WAR); Barry Zito (1999, 31.9 WAR).  15+ WAR player = 26%.  10+ WAR player = 26%.  5+ WAR player = 48%.

10th Overall Pick.  Median player: Michael Tucker (1992, 8.1 WAR).  Best players drafted at No. 10: Robin Ventura (1988, 56.1 WAR); Eric Chavez (1996, 37.5 WAR).  15+ WAR player = 39%.  10+ WAR player = 48%.  5+ WAR player = 52%.

11th Overall Pick.  Median player: Lee Tinsley (1987, 1.7 WAR).  Best players drafted at No. 11: Max Scherzer (2006, 60.5+ WAR); Andrew McCutchen (2005, 43.6+ WAR).  15+ WAR player = 13%.  10+ WAR player = 17%.  5+ WAR player = 22%.

12th Overall Pick.  Median player: Bobby Seay (1996, 3.0 WAR).  Best players drafted at No. 12: Nomar Garciaparra (1994, 44.2 WAR); Jared Weaver (2004, 34.4 WAR).  15+ WAR player = 26%.  10+ WAR player = 39%.  5+ WAR player = 48%.

What do I conclude from all of the above number-crunching and name-dropping (and my cursory review of the Nos. 13-15 draft picks during the relevant period)?  It’s worth tanking to get the first or second pick in the June Draft or to get one of the top ten picks.  Since teams bad enough at the trade deadline to have a reasonable shot to get the No. 1 or 2 picks will be tanking no matter what, the only real lesson is that teams that have the 11th to 15th worst record in MLB approaching the trade deadline and realize they have no reasonable shot to make the post-season should SELL, SELL, SELL in order to get one of the top ten draft picks the next June.

The second lesson I take from my study is that teams should ALWAYS draft the player they think to be the best available/remaining if they have a top 12 or 15 draft pick and PAY what it takes to sign the player, unless the potential draftee has made it clear he will not sign with the team under any circumstances.  After the two best players in any given draft, there is too much uncertainty for teams not to draft the player they think is the best available.  Drafting a player the team thinks is a lesser player in order to save $2 million to throw at a high school player drafted in the 11th round is going to be a bad decision in most cases, particularly in the current regime where teams get a finite budget to sign their first ten draft picks, and the draftees know the cap amounts.

I see no obvious difference in the results for the third through tenth rounds, because, I assume, after the first two consensus best players in any given draft, teams have different opinions about the merits of the next, larger group of potential draftees, to the point where it more or less becomes a crap shoot.  After the first two rounds, and with the notable exception of the 10th round, the median player drafted with the third through 12th pick isn’t really worth a damn, and the odds of selecting a 15+ WAR player, a true star, are considerably less than one in three.

As a final note, I don’t like the fact that post-trade-deadline waiver deals can no longer be made.  I don’t see the downside in allowing losing teams to dump their over-paid veterans after the trade deadline (but before the Sept. 1st play-off eligibility deadline) in exchange for some, usually limited, salary relief and prospects, while play-off bound teams get to add veterans so they can put the best possible team on the field come play-off time.  I hope MLB can find a way for these deals to resume in the future.

Will the Baltimore Orioles Finally Dump Chris Davis?

News out of Charm City is that Chris Davis had to be restrained from going after manager Brandon Hyde today after being pinch hit for in the bottom of the 5th inning.  You know what?  You don’t get to cop an attitude when you’re an aging slugger with a .589 OPS in August.  Not now, not ever.

If I were the Orioles’ General Manager, or whomever holds the real power in the Orioles’ organization, I’d release Chris Davis tomorrow and eat the remaining $69M+ on his contract.  When a player is playing as far as Davis is playing below replacement, you just have to eat the contract and hope somebody else is willing to pay him the major league minimum — the same cost to the O’s as the replacement level player they should be able to find to replace him.  A team can’t afford to accept attitude from a worse-than-marginal player no matter how much he is being paid.

It’s uncertain if Hyde will last beyond the end of the 2019 season, but that’s beside the point.  Even if Hyde is proving he’s no better as a manager than Davis is a 1B/DH, you can’t hold onto a player who isn’t performing now and isn’t likely to perform in the future.  Hyde’s record as a manager would certainly be better if word wasn’t coming from somewhere higher that he has to keep playing Davis solely because of all the money the O’s committed to Davis.

Just admit that a mistake was made, and move on.  The Orioles are so bad that it is certain that no matter how much of a comeback Davis could potentially make going forward, he won’t be good enough to make the Orioles a post-season contending team.  Find that replacement-level player now, and try to develop a real star for 2020 or 2021 or 2022 and on.

Chris Davis’ contract is yet another reason why teams have gotten a whole lot stingier on free agents thanks to sabrmetrics than they once were.  Hope springs eternal, but the objective data says that free agents are way overpaid when they ought to be merely overpaid.  For every Chris Davis and Albert Pujols, there is a Nelson Cruz, but those aren’t great odds.  And teams have been generally stingy with their contracts to Cruz since his PED positive test to their great benefit.

The objective lesson is treat ’em all like Nelson Cruz and then some.  The Mariners gave Cruz a four-year $57M deal going into this age 34 season, so even in Cruz’s case, the team took some risk.  Teams collectively only benefit by holding the line on free agent salaries, and superstar players will still get paid because many teams still believe and will likely continue to believe that they are only one or two free agents away from contention.

If Davis gets the axe in Baltimore, it will be interesting see if another team signs him to a major league contract, even at the MLB minimum salary.   If Davis can’t hit playing half his games in Baltimore, is a change of scenery really going to make a difference.  Maybe the Rangers would sign him to play at the major league level — Davis is from Texas, and there’s no better place to hit in the Junior Circuit than the Ballpark at Arlington (or whatever it is now called).  The O’s should let the Rangers give Davis a shot.

All Those 4-A Outfielders

Former SF Giants Mac Williamson and Jarrett Parker both cleared waivers today and out-righted back to AAA.  They’ve both hit great in the Pacific Coast League this year, which isn’t surprising given their talent levels and the amount of offense in the PCL.  Hitting in the majors is a whole ‘nother story.

At this point, it seems clear that neither Williamson nor Parker has any reasonable shot as regular major league roster spot holders and both should immediately begin looking into opportunities to play in the Asian majors.  Parker, in particular, needs to move fast, or he’ll be too old to interest a KBO or NPB team.

It feels like every single player the Giants have used in the outfield this season should seriously consider trying to get a high paying job in Asia no later than next off-season.  The only exceptions are Brandon Belt and Steven Vogt who played the outfield for the Gints this year mainly out of pure desperation.  Obviously, Kevin Pillar won’t be going to Asia anytime soon, but his career is fast approaching a stage where he should at least give it some consideration.

Yangervis Solarte, in fact, has already signed with an NPB team.  I am certain that between now and the end of the 2020, he won’t be the last former Giants outfielder to go to Asia.