In a recent interview with Yahoo!, Brother Elephants lefty Yeh Ding-Jen addressed Napoleonic manager Hong Yi-Chen’s proposed rule to require a minimum $200,000 signing bonus as well as recent comments from various athletic department directors questioning how well U.S. teams take care of players from overseas.
Yeh, who signed for $80,000 out of college, was initially signed by Red Sox scout John Deeble. Despite being released after only a season, He offered praise of the strength training programs and competitive atmosphere found in the States.
When asked about his opinion about Hong’s proposed rule, he claimed that he felt the proposed rule would have the negative effect of denying young players a chance to go overseas and see the world.
(Original Chinese version here)
2 responses so far ↓
1 John Brooks // Sep 14, 2008 at 11:12 am
The problem here that Hong’s failing to mention, is that the mess CPBL is in now is its own fault. To blame MLB for the sad sack mess their league is in is madness.
I mean who honestly would want to play in the crooked league CPBL has became? What I’m saying is I cant fault Taiwanese amateurs who want to bolt CPBL all together by trying their luck in MLB or NPB.
Also, so people don’t take it the wrong way. I mean no knock on the CPBL, but if it continues down the track it currently is I’m afraid the future for CPBL doesn’t look good.
2 Bong Bong // Sep 14, 2008 at 3:16 pm
You have no reason to qualify your post about the CPBL. They bring the sad state of their league upon themselves. If they can’t even prove that the whole season isn’t fixed, why would you want to watch it or participate in it?
Unfortunately it’s unlikely that Hong, the team owners, or any officials in positions of power in that league will ever take any responsibility for it, which means it will inevitably continue down the current course.
Hong is just trying to keep control of players any way that he can. Since he can’t get them to stay voluntarily–nobody wants to play for a fixed league with empty stands–he’s resorting to cheap tricks like this.
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