As of today there are 4 Taiwanese players on the roster of one of the MLB teams.
The newest Taiwanese player to make into the MLB is pitcher Tseng Jen-Ho with the Cubs organization. Tseng is 22 and comes from Kaohisung. He was the starting pitcher last night and pitched 3 innings, giving up 5 runs in the process.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rumkJwD__Ko
The others are Lin Tzu-wei of the Red Sox, Wang Wei-Chung of the Brewers, and Chen Wei-yin of the Rays.
He has a good change actually, did pretty decent in being on the outside or on the edge of the strike zone with his 2 seam and cutter jamming a lot of guys. But can’t throw that flat 2 seamer right down the middle high. Change looked good when it’s low. Looks like he was a little nervous and gripped to tightly and bounced a lot trying to get more movement. Can throw the 12-6 bender for strikes, but i would like him to try to utilize it for for a out pitch. But 6 Strike outs is pretty good for a 22 year old in 3 innings. The mets were running a lot and I think it messed with his focus as well.
A little bit unlucky and just looked a bit nervous. Missed 3 easy outs that costed him.
Well, it’s a September call up, so it’s just for him to get a hang of it, handling the stress. Next year when he gets called up, hopefully he’ll be ready.
I really liked his change up when he kept it low, cutter could be sharper with less movement imo. Its a good pitch if he can locate it for contact.
Go for contact and not strikeouts might be his next challenge. His SO rate is pretty amazing, but going for strikeout against every batter might translate to less innings pitched per start.
He got lucky on some of them because they were just laying off the cutter had them looking for strikes when they got a fastball in the zone that wasn’t cutting. He won’t get that lucky if guys won’t offer and swing at that. It wasn’t fooling anyone. It’s a great complementary pitch with his fastball that has 2 seam running action that isn’t in the mid 90s.
And his stuff isn’t filthy where I’m too excited about 6ks in 3 innings. It’s def a good sign when you can strike out 6 major leaguers. But he really needs to locate that cutter if he’s going to have a successful career. It wasn’t fooling anyone.
Now there are 5 players in the MLB, and Tseng had his first MLB win by 3 relief innings striking out 2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac3YHf1Pkew
Tseng’s control was much improved this time around, and some of that movement is pretty nasty. That last amazing play though, saved him from giving up a home run.
Another Taiwanese pitcher Hu Chih-wei also had his first win the same day with one inning pitched and giving up one home run to Greg Bird.
Yeah. He looks way more relaxed. His arm looked loose and fastball got on them quick. Location was spot on this time. Always missed out of the zone when he wasn’t shaving the edges. That’s that good contact pitching that will keep in you the majors.
MLB is less racist against East Asians, right?
the MLB is probably the most diverse sports league I can think of today. They crave international talents and have scouts all over the world looking for hidden gems. Even though soccer is the most played sport in the world, many places still heckle foreign players all the time. I think baseball fans really love the game and appreciate developing talents, and it’s also cool because players from different parts of the world play the game differently in some sense. Cuban players are known to be hard nose and really aggressive on the base paths, japanese more technical and focus on defense and small ball. Little bit of culture sinks into players and baseball fans like myself love to see that.
The MLB had a history of racism and actually confronts it with things like jackie robinson day every year where everyone wears 42, Robinson’s number, to show unity and that everyones the same. Also they have tried their best to preserve the history of the negro leagues.
Baseball fans and teams really embrace foreign players.