Lin Hong-yu came away as the biggest winner at the Chinese Professional Baseball League’s (CPBL) annual awards ceremony in Taipei on Sunday with five trophies and NT$330,000 (US$11,045) in prize money under his belt, including the coveted Most Valuable Player honor.
The second-year Lamigo Monkey catcher out of Chinese Culture University also became the first catcher in league history to win the league’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) after an outstanding year at the plate helped his team make it into the postseason.
“It’s a great honor to win [MVP], given the level of competition that is involved, but I would trade it all for the championship because baseball is a team sport after all,” Lin said after the ceremony.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
The Monkeys were not able to top the Uni-President Lions in the Taiwan Series, losing the annual Fall Classic by a 4-1 margin.
Lin’s other honors included most RBIs and home runs in the regular season, at 106 and 22, as well as the Silver Slugger award and the top-ranked player in the league by position (catcher).
Lin was not the only player who went home with an armful of awards as the Brother Elephants’ Chang Cheng-wei also racked up four trophies and NT$290,000 in prize money for winning the batting title (.351), most hits (170) and most stolen bases (33) for an unconventional triple crown to go along with being the top-ranked outfielder in the league.
On the defensive side of the ball, Orlando Roman of the Elephants was the big winner with 16 victories to his credit for most wins and 161 strikeouts to lead the league, while the Monkeys’ Ken Ray took home the ERA title with a solid 2.85 ERA for the season.
Rounding out the rest of the individual awards were Kao Jien-san of the Lions, who landed the top reliever honor with 26 holds, and Hsu Ming-jeh of the Monkeys for the top closer distinction with 30 saves. It was Kao’s first major honor in an otherwise quiet 14-year career that saw the right-hander out of Fu Jen Catholic University improve steadily with the former Chinatrust Whales before joining the Lions in 2008.
Lions manager Lu Wen-sheng was named Manager of the Year for leading the Cats to an unprecedented eighth league title despite a slew of injuries that sidelined star players such as Pan “Du Du” Wei-luen and Chen Yong-chi for a good part of the season.
The Rookie of the Year honor was given to Guan Da-yuan of the Elephants for his 10-5 record that kept the defending champs in the title race all the way to the final game in the regular season, in what many would consider a down year for them.
The Most Improved Player of the Year went to the Sinon Bulls’ Su Jien-rong, whose career-best .312 batting average was 127 points higher than his .185 average last season. Su was the lone Bull to claim an award.
The top-ranked players by position were Roman, Lin, Lions first baseman Kao Guo-ching, Monkeys second baseman Kuo Yen-wen, Lions third baseman Chang “OEO” Tai-shan, Elephants shortstop Wang Sheng-wei, Lions outfielder Liu Fu-hao, Monkeys outfielder Chung Cheng-yo, Elephants outfielder Chang Cheng-wei and designated hitter Chen Guan-ren.
The Golden Glove winners by position for this year were Roman and fellow catcher Chen Chih-hong, Kao, Elephants infield trio Chen -Jiang-ho (second baseman), Huang Shih-hao (third baseman) and Wang Sheng-wei (shortstop), Liu, Bulls outfielder Su and Chung.
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