MLB Barometer: Intro to the Chinese Pro League

With MLB news still limited to an agonizingly slow trickle, I thought it best to use this space this week on a PSA for sports-starved fans: there is live professional baseball going on now, and it's actually quite good.

The Chinese Professional Baseball League in Taiwan began its regular season in mid-April in front of empty stadiums and has taken advantage of its status as the only active professional baseball league in the world by offering free English-language streams over Twitter. (Links for where to watch games can be found here.) Games are played at 5 a.m. or 6:30 a.m. EDT, a difficult proposition even for seasoned American fans of European soccer who are used to early morning games, but the streams have been available to watch on a delay later in the day.

While watching a foreign league won't give you the thrill of watching your favorite teams or let you follow your top fantasy picks (though we now offer game previews for contests held on India-based daily fantasy site Dream11), it's certainly gone a long way toward scratching the itch for me as a baseball fan. Within one hour of checking out my first CPBL game, I heard "We Will Rock You" blasting over the stadium speakers and got to listen to an announcer ranting against bunts. What more can you ask for?

Here are the basics of the league for those looking to quickly get up to speed and satisfy their need for baseball until the MLB returns:

• The league consists of just four teams, each named after the corporation that owns them: the CTBC Brothers, the Fubon Guardians, the Rakuten Monkeys and the Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions.

• Teams play 120 games, split into two 60-game half-seasons. The winner of each half season meets in a best-of-seven championship series known as the Taiwan Series (a considerably less pretentious name than the "World Series"). If one team wins both half seasons, the two teams with the next-best full-season records play in a best-of-five series to determine who advances to the Taiwan Series.

• Do you like runs? The CPBL has runs. Teams scored 5.47 runs per game last season. For comparison, MLB teams scored 4.83 runs per game last season in one of the more high-scoring seasons in recent memory. Only once since 1900 has MLB seen more than 5.47 runs per team per game, and that came all the way back in 1930.

• Quality of play is somewhere around the Double-A level, per this thorough guide from English-language site cpblstats.com. Each team has a small number of players with MLB experience, however.

• Each team is allowed four foreign players under contract, with only two allowed in a game at one time. The latter restriction doesn't seem likely to come up, as all of the foreign players in the league this season are pitchers. Most of these players are fringe MLB types, who are able to make roughly the equivalent of the minimum MLB salary in Taiwan. Have you been missing Esmil Rogers, Ryan Carpenter, Ariel Miranda or Justin Nicolino? They're all here.

• The Monkeys, known as the Lamigo Monkeys prior to their acquisition by Japanese online retail company Rakuten before this season, have been the dominant force in the league in recent seasons. They've won three consecutive Taiwan Series and five of the last six. Very much an offense-first team, they led the league with 6.66 runs per game last season but finished second lowest with 5.72 runs allowed per game. Their offense is led by 2019 MVP and home run leader Chu Yu-Hsien, who hit 30 homers in 118 games last season and had eight in his first eight games this year. (Note: Transliterations of Mandarin names may vary. The spellings given here are those used by cpblstats.com as well as Dream11 wherever possible.)

• The Brothers have been the Monkeys' biggest challengers recently, losing in the Taiwan series in five of the last six seasons, including four times to the Monkeys. Their last title came back in 2010. A balanced squad, the Brothers finished second last season in both runs scored and runs allowed. Chan Tzu-Hsien is one of the team's star hitters. The outfielder hit 26 homers with a .351/.402/.638 slash line last season. The team's pitching staff contains seven-year MLB veteran Esmil Rogers and three-year MLB vet Ariel Miranda.

• The Guardians tied the Monkeys for the best record in the league last season but did not qualify for the Taiwan Series, as they didn't win either half season. They're the only team to have beaten the Monkeys for the title in the last six seasons, winning the 2016 series (under the name "EDA Rhinos"). The Guardians possessed the best pitching in the league last season but finished second lowest in runs scored. American Mike Loree leads the team's pitching staff. He topped out at Double-A on this side of the Pacific but has had quite a career in his seven seasons in Taiwan, posting a career 3.19 ERA and a league-leading 2.78 ERA last season, numbers which are better than they look given the league's offense-heavy environment.

• The Lions were the dominant force prior to the Monkeys' recent dominance, winning five of seven titles from 2007 to 2013. They lost in the Taiwan Series in 2018 but endured an awful 2019 campaign, finishing 14 games behind the next-worst team while coming in last in both runs scored and runs allowed, both by considerable margins. Su Chih-Chieh is one of the team's offensive stars. He tied for second in the league with 27 homers while also finishing third in the league with 21 steals, making him the league's only 20-20 player.

I hope that brief overview is enough to help get you up to speed on the league, and I hope you'll join me in following a legitimately interesting baseball league until American baseball returns. For now, we'll go back to checking in on the few bits of relevant stateside news.

RISERS

Dustin May, SP, Dodgers: May was a popular breakout pick in early drafts before a side injury popped up at the start of camp, taking him out of contention for a rotation spot. The delayed start to the season has bought him time to heal, and he said last week that he's now completely healthy. He can now seemingly be drafted around the same spot he was going prior to the injury, though concerns about his role may mean that's too steep a price. Alex Wood was confirmed as the Dodgers' fifth starter prior to the shutdown, and while that battle could be reopened with May healthy again, it's unlikely the Dodgers brought back the veteran lefty without plans to use him. Even if May opens as the team's sixth starter, however, he's likely to spend a fair amount of time in the rotation, especially if a condensed schedule leads to fewer off days and more doubleheaders. The 22-year-old struck out a roughly average 22.7 percent of batters in his 34.2-inning last season, but when combined with his young age and minuscule 3.5 percent walk rate, it's easy to see why people are getting excited.

Dylan Carlson, OF, Cardinals: Whether Carlson was in contention for an Opening Day roster spot prior to the league shutting down was never entirely clear. While he's a very exciting prospect who went a solid 10-for-32 with four extra-base hits this spring, he's also just 21 and has played just 18 games at the Triple-A level, so a return there to start the season would be at least somewhat justifiable. It's been reported that rosters could be expanded once play resumes, however, which would help Carlson's case to earn a spot. That would be doubly true if major-league play resumes before minor-league games do (or if minor leagues don't end up playing this season at all, a possibility that seemingly can't be ruled out). If and when Carlson reaches the majors, he won't be there to sit on the bench.

James Paxton, SP, Yankees: It was clear from the beginning of the shutdown that Paxton would benefit from the delayed start to the season, as it would at the very least reduce the amount of time he'd miss while recovering from back surgery. He's been ramping up his workouts recently, however, and will reportedly be ready to pitch right away once play resumes. It's certainly a boost to his value that he no longer has to be drafted as if he'll be missing time at the start of the season, though risk remains in an injury-prone player who's been injured once already this season. The veteran lefty has never made 30 big-league starts in a season, and there's little reason to believe he won't make a trip to the injured list at some point this season even if he's healthy on Opening Day.

Ian Happ OF Cubs: Happ is far from a star, but his respectable power makes him worthy of consideration at least as a lottery ticket. In 1,031 career plate appearances, he's hit 50 homers. He was heavily plagued by strikeouts early in his career but managed to trim his strikeout rate from 36.1 percent in 2018 to 25.0 last year (in an admittedly small sample of just 156 plate appearances). His role his season isn't entirely clear, however, as Albert Almora is likely to share time with him in center field. If the new plan for the MLB season involves a universal designated hitter, however, that would certainly boost Happ's value, as the added spot in the lineup means he won't have to head to the bench nearly as often. That could also help Almora as well as new outfield addition Steven Souza, who are both expected to factor into the Cubs' outfield rotation.

Franchy Cordero, OF, Padres: Cordero has long had tools worth drooling over, but injuries have had a major impact the last two seasons, limited him to just 49 big-league games and 71 total games across all levels. Reports on his health are good now, however, after he came through both the Dominican Winter League and an abbreviated Cactus League campaign unscathed. The 25-year-old's role in a crowded Padres outfield remains uncertain, but Wil Myers, Trent Grisham and Josh Naylor aren't exactly the stiffest competition for starting roles next to Tommy Pham. An altered schedule could help Cordero's case for playing time as well, as a designated hitter would allow for each member of that group to receive more at-bats. Cordero is still very much a lottery ticket, as his 38.8 percent career strikeout rate at the big-league level might be too big of an obstacle for him to overcome, but as lottery tickets go, you could certainly do worse than betting on a player who has received grades of 70 for his raw power and speed.

Shohei Ohtani, SP/DH, Angels: Ohtani's recovery from Tommy John surgery (a procedure he underwent in October 2018) continues to go well. He's been throwing bullpens at about 80 to 85 percent and is expected to be able to face hitters in May. With the expected start date for the 2020 season still in the air, it now seems quite likely that Ohtani could pitch from the start of the campaign. The Angels were already quite cautious with the two-way player's pitching workload before his injury, and it's likely that caution will only increase in his first season back from a major injury. Still, those who drafted Ohtani this winter expecting to use him primarily as a hitter to start the season may now get to use both sides of his production all year.

FALLERS

Brent Honeywell, SP, Rays: Honeywell was an exciting prospect on the brink of his MLB debut when his last pitched, having ridden his screwball to a 3.64 ERA, a 29.1 percent strikeout rate and a 5.9 percent walk rate in 24 Triple-A starts. Unfortunately, those starts came all the way back in 2017. He hasn't thrown a competitive pitch since, first due to Tommy John surgery and then due to a fractured elbow. His previous prospect status and proximity to the majors made him a potentially interesting late-round flyer in drafts this offseason, but the altered season may hurt his status significantly. While he's been able to throw this spring, the Rays will want to see him prove himself again at the Triple-A level given that it's been so long since he's been able to pitch in game action. It's not currently clear that there will even be a minor-league season, so Honeywell may not get the chance to show he's ready to go.

Wander Franco, SS, Rays: Franco featured on this list a few weeks ago, as a shortened season will cost him opportunities to prove himself at the higher levels of the minors before potentially earning a big-league shot. With the plans for the minor-league season even less clear than the plans to resume major-league play, Franco's value takes another hit. He's a tremendously talented player, who hit .339/.408/.464 with nearly twice as many walks (26) as strikeouts (15) in 52 High-A games last season, but the Rays are understandably not very interested in jumping a 19-year-old straight from High-A to the big leagues. Drafting Franco was always a very low-floor proposition, but with the already high odds that he wouldn't appear at all this season seemingly increasing, the idea of taking him seems harder to justify.