When Taiwan won their first major title in a senior-level international baseball tournament by capturing the Premier12 championship in November last year, it was the highlight of the CPBL off-season, but in terms of the impact on the league’s future, the emergence of a genuine free-agent market last month might eventually matter more.
All four players who declared for free agency at the end of last season — Chen Tzu-hao, Chen Yun-wen, Chan Tzu-hsien and Chu Yu-hsien — signed new deals for at least four years and annual salaries of nearly NT$10 million (US$305,979) at a minimum.
Though only a few players were involved, it was the league’s most active and lucrative free-agent market ever.
Photo: CNA
Previously, only two contracts of five years and three contracts averaging more than NT$9 million a year had been signed in the CPBL since the start of the free-agency era in 2009.
To many, the four sizeable free-agent contracts marked a potentially momentous turning point for the CPBL, one as big as the birth of free agency in Major League Baseball in 1976.
Videoland broadcaster Jacky Lee shared his insights on the factors driving the big contracts and the significance of the active free-agency market in an interview with the Central News Agency.
The most direct cause of the more generous contracts was increased revenue from ticket sales last year, Lee said, a trend he attributed to the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of the Taipei Dome and the rising popularity of cheerleaders.
Last year was the league’s first complete season since the Central Epidemic Command Center disbanded on May 1, 2023, after a 1,197-day COVID-19 pandemic response.
The end of the pandemic and access to the Taipei Dome, which opened in late 2023 with a seating capacity of up to 40,000, helped lift average attendance at CPBL games by 28 percent to 7,684 last year.
Overall, the CPBL drew a record 2.77 million fans across 360 games, eclipsing the previous record of 1.8 million in 2023.
Lee attributed some of that rising attendance and growing revenues to the decision by the Lamigo Monkeys (now the Rakuten Monkeys) in 2011 to introduce cheerleaders at CPBL games.
“There is no denying that the cheerleaders have significantly boosted the sport’s exposure and attracted more fans to the stadiums, resulting in a merchandise sales increase,” Lee said. “Now when people see cheerleaders, even at non-baseball commercial events, they think about baseball.”
The big spending this off-season also coincided with higher quality players being available.
That was due in part to the CPBL allowing high-school graduates to be directly drafted in 2013, enabling players to still be relatively young after completing the nine years of service required to declare for free agency.
“Chen Tzu-hao is the most successful high-school pick so far. He has power and is just 29 years old, unlike older free agents already in decline,” Lee said.
A standout with the CTBC Brothers, Chen Tzu-hao signed a 10-year, NT$130 million contract with the Wei Chuan Dragons, the longest and biggest deal in CPBL history. It also included franchise and player options, a rarity in the league’s 35-year history.
Chen Yun-wen, 29, another player drafted into the league directly from high school, has the most saves of any pitcher in CPBL history. He stayed with the Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions on a five-year, NT$45 million contract.
The other free agents were Chan, a 30-year-old outfielder who stayed with the Brothers, and Chu, a 33-year-old outfielder who signed with the Dragons.
“The stronger and younger these players are, the more bargaining power they have,” said Lee, who hoped that the nine-year free-agency period could be shortened so that more players could hit free agency in their primes.
Another factor fueling the off-season buzz has been the league’s expansion, Lee said.
For the first time in more than 15 years, the CPBL featured six teams last season, after having contracted to four following a major gambling scandal in 2008.
It stayed that way until the Wei Chuan Dragons rejoined the league in 2020, and went back to six teams with the addition of the Taichung-based Hawks last year.
The four-team league stifled the free-agent market because players had few options, giving employers the upper hand in contract negotiations.
“If the Dragons and Hawks had not joined, I believe the free agent market would not have been this eventful,” Lee said.
The Hawks’ strong interest in signing Chan forced the Brothers to give him a five-year contract worth at least NT$48 million, even though he played 12 fewer games last year than in 2023 and logged lower numbers.
With players like Chen Tzu-hao landing record-breaking deals, Lee said players would be more willing to test the free-agent market or force teams to reward players to keep them away from free agency.
On Friday last week, about one month after Chen Tzu-hao’s deal, the Brothers and their five-time Golden Glove Award-winning shortstop Chiang Kun-yu agreed to a 10-year, NT$147.9 million deal.
Chiang, a 2018 third-round pick by the Brothers as a high-school graduate, is just 24.
“[Signing players to big contracts] is an ongoing trend. It would not surprise me if the CPBL sees more deals like this in the future,” Brothers general manager Liu Zhi-wei said.
The CPBL does not have a salary cap, meaning its players can earn as much as their franchises are willing to pay, but the high contracts do not mean the organizations lose.
Instead, competition over players only keeps interest in the league alive after the season has ended, Lee said.
“We’re witnessing the dawn of the CPBL’s best era, and it can get even better,” he said.
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