Sunday, September 29, 2013

Brother Elephants Pitcher Scouting Reports

In a previous post, I looked at three CPBL pitchers who could be possibly be considered MLB prospects. However, since the league contains only four teams, I thought it would be a good idea to look at the pitchers on each team similar to how I have been looking at the deliveries in the NPB. Since complete games in the CPBL are kept on YouTube, I watched each pitcher, wrote some short notes on their pitches, and GIF'd their deliveries, just as an introduction for people not knowing anything about the CPBL but wanting to start to get to know the players. I am not doing the teams in any particular order, and the first team is the Brother Elephants. The Brothers are last in the league in overall 2013 record, but have the best pitching staff just by runs allowed (they have scored the fewest amount of runs). Hiroki Sanada and Ta-Yuan Kuan were in the post linked to above, so they won't be in this post.

I tried my best with the names, but unlike the NPB and KBO, there aren't always easy to find English translations. If you know of a better translation of a name, leave it in the comments and I will link to it or change the name (ironically, the biggest reason I wanted to do some CPBL posts is because there are basically no English resources available, which also makes doing so without being bilingual difficult). All velocity numbers are translated from KM/H to MPH.

Lin En-Yu
He was recently replaced on the active roster by Li Juguan, but he was on the roster when I started working on this, and he has more innings, so I included him. He has pretty good size, and brings his hands over his head facing the hitter before his leg kick, which isn't part of his stride. After all this, he comes forward pretty standard.
82-86 fastball
72-76 soft slider
64 curve


Yu-Ching Lin
The 24 year old has backed up a strong 2012 campaign with a slightly better 2013 campaign. His numbers are virtually the same other than walks, an area where he has improved. Just under 6 feet tall, he uses a hip turn to bring his body away from the hitter with a high leg kick, followed by a bizarre arm action.
84-88, velocity picked up to the higher stages in the second inning. Could get some downward movement on it.

76 slider mostly downward break, 73 more of a curve.

76-78 splitter like pitch that breaks arm side

A lot of deception in his overall games, a lot of bad chases out of the zone by CPBL hitters.

Miguel Mejia
The 25 year old pitched in both the Marlins and Tigers systems, almost exclusively out of the bullpen. Nothing was spectacular about his numbers, and he racked up just 131 innings in 3 years. At about 6-2 or 6-3, he uses a pause in the middle of his leg kick, and it seems to upset his own delivery timing, along with the hitter's. There is a tilt backwards in his delivery before slinging his arm forward.

92-94 early, down to 87-91 after the first couple of batters.
73 slider, good two way movement, not close to the strike zone.
78-80 splitter, up to 84


Brad Thomas
LHP, easily the tallest pitcher on the team, standing at about 6'4. According to Pitch F/X, when Thomas was in the Majors, his fastball was about 91 MPH and he threw a sinker, curve and a changeup, but here is what I saw watching him in the CPBL:

91-92, really likes to come in on right-handed hitters.

79-80 unimpressive slider he can throw for a strike
Luo Guohua
The 26 year old is enjoying his best season, posting a 3.82 ERA as a reliever.
He has a really standard delivery, standing just over 6 feet tall.

82-84 sometimes moves arm side.

75-77 breaking ball he struggled to get down, though on the occasions that he can, he gets good two way movement.

72 more of a curvey breaking ball 
Sung-Wei Tseng
RHP SP is about 5-10. This year has been the 28 year old's biggest year by far when it comes to innings pitched, and while his ERA and groundball rates held well, his strikeout to walk rate leaves something to be desired (50 to 41 in over 130 innings).
83-86, up to 87-89. 2-seamer can come in on RHB, and can throw it low with good movement.

72-74 curve/slider

Mid 70s changeup/slider he left up a lot.

Po-Hsuan Keng
At about 6 feet tall, the 28 year old has been a 1 inning reliever throughout his career (actually averaging less than an inning an outing). He is not much of a strikeout pitcher, relying on groundouts instead. He has pretty good size, good weight, broad shoulders, but slings the ball sidearm. It is more of a high sidearm, not a low sidearm.
84-86, gets some sink or 2-seam run, down to 83-84, up to 88
78 change
73 slider breaks glove side, something to go away from right-handed hitters.

 Wu Ming-Hsu
Also about 6 feet tall, the CPBL rookie threw 23.1 innings this year, so the jury seems to still be out on the 25 year old. He slings the ball hard, with a little bit wobbly landing point. Fastball command seems to be some kind of issue
89-92, gets up to 93-94, down to 86-88 with a little more command and ability to get it low.
81-82 slider, gets it glove side, not a lot of movement either way, a strike pitch
72 curve
79 split

Hung-Wen Chen
First year in the CPBL has been successful, with a 3.07 ERA and 3.6 K/BB ratio. The 27 year old pitched in the Cubs' minor league system from 2007-2011, enjoying some success, getting all the way to AAA, but not missing a lot of bats. He also spent part of 2011 in the Mexican League, where he dominated as mostly a closer in 34.2 innings. A pretty big looking guy, but actually stands under 6 feet. He has a leg sweep more than a kick, though he does come up some. Comes forward after he has set the leg back down.

87-91 up to 92-93 at end of outing can get some downward movement on it. He seemed to use it both arm side and glove side and would pitch inside to righties.

74-79 got up to 80 soft slider (though it doesn't look like a slider grip, the movement didn't look like a splitter, maybe a separate splitter), didn't seem to get it down well, a strike pitch.

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