Can be found here.
Based on World Cup play, I am encouraged to see that Taiwan's future is in good hands. Bringing the youngest team into the tourney, Taiwan was able to gain valuable international experience for these young guys. Despite a losing record of 3-5, Taiwan was fairly competitive, even in their losses. The loss to Colombia was a huge upset and an aberration; but Japan, the US, Nicaragua, and Puerto Rico all sported a more veteran and better all around team than Taiwan. Taiwan did manage a quality win over Australia.
Taiwan's hitters were able to prove that they can compete with anyone. In preliminary action, Taiwan had the 5th highest team batting average (.320), was 6th in total HR's hit (8), 4th in team hits (89), and 5th in slugging (.500). However, timely hitting was a problem for Taiwan, as it was only average/middle of the pack with 48 runs scored. Also errors cost Taiwan a number of runs and even a game (vs. US), as evidenced by it's team .958 fielding percentage.
Taiwan's young pitchers were overmatched against the competition they faced. Against weaker opponents, Taiwan's pitchers were very effective. However against the stronger teams in the pool, the kids faltered. As a team, Taiwan's pitchers gave up 8 HR's in 8 games, and had a team ERA of 3.92.
Many of these unsigned kids will go on to careers in the CPBL. Tseng(P) and Kuo(OF) are 2 good examples of kids who put up good numbers in the World Cup, but because of their lack of prototypical size, will probably end up playing domestically in Taiwan.
As for the kids who signed contracts with the MLB and the NPB; Lo, Hu, and Chen hit very well and I'm sure made their respective organizations proud. Pitchers Cheng, Keng, and Chiang will need to step up their game if they expect to climb the organizational ladder all the way to the top.
It will be interesting to see if any of these kids make the national team next spring for the World Baseball Classic.
5 comments:
Hey thetaiwaneseterror, do you post stuff about taiwanese players in the mlb as well or only amateurs?
Time permitting, I will eventually start posting on the Big 4. But for now, because there are other sites out there dedicated to MLB Taiwanese players - Frank's Field of Dreams site is pretty good, I thought I'd begin my focus on the lesser known minor league players as well as up and comers.
I was helping the Taiwan team while they were staying in the Netherlands, I could send you some pictures if you are interested. But I cannot find your email.
Hey cor!
Thanks for offering. I'm definitely interested!!
My email address is: thetaiwaneseterror at yahoo dot com
At and dot are spelled out to help avoid spam mail.
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