Tribe Continues Shopping at Pacific Rim
Written By: Scott | Category: Cleveland Indians | Comments: 6
A little less than a year ago, the Indians turned a few heads when they agreed to terms with relief pitcher Masa Kobayashi. At 34 years of age, Kobayashi has had an up and down season that has become a little more volatile with each marginal inning pitched.
In 42 games prior to the All-Star break, Masa had an ERA of 3.05 – not too bad – while saving five games and allowing only five home runs. Since the break, Kobayashi’s ERA has ballooned to 10.32 and he has already allowed nearly as many long balls, giving up three in only 15 games.
But this hasn’t turned Mark Shaprio’s team off in terms of overseas prospects. But this time, thankfully, they went a bit younger.
“The Tribe once again dipped into the international waters and signed Taiwanese right-hander Chen-Chang Lee to a Minor League deal Tuesday. Terms of the deal were not announced.
A candidate for next spring’s World Baseball Classic, Lee will report to the Tribe’s fall instructional league in Goodyear, Ariz., this week, and he’ll likely begin his professional career at Class A Kinston next season.
Lee, 21, recently finished his junior year at Taipei Physical Education College and was a member of Taiwan’s national team that participated in the Beijing Olympic Games, going 0-1 with 2.00 ERA and 11 strikeouts in nine innings. “
Apparently, the Indians have been following Lee since he was 16-years old, similar to Fausto Carmona – who didn’t turn out all too bad. Though only 5′7″ and 175 pounds, Lee reportedly reaches the mid-90s with his fastball and throws four pitches extremely well. Tossing side-arm, it appears that Lee is destined for a bullpen role with the team, and could reach the bigs within a two-year window.
Tucked away in the Tribe’s report is that Lee is one of four international players that were signed. Third baseman Giovanny Urshella from Columbia, shortstop Jose Ozoria from the Dominican Republic and catcher Alex Monsalve from Venezuela are all 16-years old, and will be a part of the minor league program. But regarding Lee, let’s just hope that he is more Hideki Okajima than Byung-Hyun Kim.
Tribe ink Taiwanese hurler Lee [Indians.com]
Author: Scott
Scott is a co-founder/editor of Waiting For Next Year who resides in Cleveland, Ohio. Feel free to follow him on Twitter or email him at scott@waitingfornextyear.com.Scott has written 1701 articles for Waiting for Next Year.
“But regarding Lee, let’s just hope that he is more Hideki Okajima than Byung-Hyun Kim.”
Haha, nicely done Scott.
This isn’t relevant, but I would have loved to have been able to attend a “Physical Eduction College”. Dang.
Byung-Hyun Kim had one good year
::Only half serious::
we’re signing 16 year olds? is this normal and i just haven’t noticed?
16 years old is the floor for being able to sign prospects from other countries, yes. A lot of teams set up academies in the Latin American countries and scout the kids that way.
This looks very promising.
As I live in Japan, I would love to see the Indians sign a marquee Japanese player one day; however, the costs of such signings are getting out of control. Japanese baseball is making it very expensive for US teams to either bid for or sign Japanese players. Nonetheless, the main benefit for me to their being a Japanese Indian (if I can put it that way) would be that I’d see more Indians games on TV. As things stand, the teams shown on TV here are, in order of frequency, the Yankees, the Red Sox, and the Mariners. Surprising, huh? (Didn’t think so…) Matsui, Matsuzaka, Ichiro. No further explanation required. Somehow, Iwamura of the Rays is not a media darling, and the National League players from Japan get highlights, but very few of their games are shown.