Chieh-Hsien Chen to captain Chinese Taipei at WBSC Premier12
After months of evaluating the players on the preliminary 80-man roster, including trips to Japan and the United States by manager Hao-Ju Tseng, Chinese Taipei officially announced their 28-man roster for the upcoming WBSC Premier12 presented by RAXUS.
The roster is composed of 14 pitchers led by three-time Premier12 veteran Kuan-Yu Chen (Rakuten Monkeys), three catchers, including Lyle Lin from the Arizona Diamondbacks organisation, seven infielders, including a pair of CPBL’s annual MVPs (Li Lin, 2022, and Yu-Hsien Chu, 2019, both from the Monkeys), and four outfielders headed by the Chinese Taipei team and Lions captain Chieh-Hsien Chen.
The complete
roster of Chinese Taipei is as follows:
PITCHERS (14) Jui-Yang Gu-Lin (Lions), Hao-Chun Chiu (Lions), Chun-Wei Wu (Brothers), Kuan-Wei Chen (Dragons), Kai-Wei Lin (Dragons), Yi-Chang (Guardians), Kuo-Hao Chiang (Guardians), Bo-Ching Chen (Hawks), Chih-Hsuan Wang (Monkeys), Kuan-Yu Chen (Monkeys), Tzu-Peng Huang (Monkeys), Hsin-Yen Chuang (Monkeys), Yu-Min Lin (Diamondbacks), Wen-Hui Pan (Phillies)
CATCHERS (3) Giljegiljaw Kungkuan (Dragons), Pei-Fong Tai (Guardians), Lyle Lin (Diamondbacks)
INFIELDERS (7) Chieh-Kai Pan (Lions), Kun-Yu Chiang (Brothers), Tung-Hwa Yueh (Brothers), Kai-Wei Lee (Dragons), Cheng-Yu Chang (Dragons), Li Lin (Monkeys), Yu-Hsien Chu (Monkeys)
OUTFIELDERS (4) Chieh-Hsien Chen (Lions), Chih-Cheng Chiu (Loins), An-Ko Lin (Lions), Chen-Wei Chen (Monkeys)
Chinese Taipei manager Tseng explained the roster selection priority as “willingness, health, and statistics” and added “therefore, we have to give up many players who are injured or are not one hundred per cent back from their injuries.”
While the roster is being rated as a new generation of a Chinese Taipei team, Tseng stated that “the players selected are those who have had a solid season, and I do expect them to perform as well as Yu-Chieh Kao, Yi-Chang, and Chun-Hsiu Chen in the ’19.”
Kuan-Yu Chen, the only player selected who had played in the previous two editions, jokingly stated: “I went from one of the younger players in the first edition in 2015 to the oldest this time.
“I would really love to pitch against Japan, and of course, in addition to fulfilling my pitching duties, I would try my best to pass down my experiences to the younger generation of my teammates,” he commented.
Chinese Taipei will open camp on October 15 and has scheduled two warm-up games against world No. 14 Czechia on November 2 and 3 at the Taipei Dome.
Catchers Lyle Lin and Pei-Fong Tai were selected to represent Chinese Taipei in last year’s Asian Games in Hangzhou to call the pitches behind the plate. They will play in the Premier12 for the first time.
Tai stated that he is looking forward to the Premier12 because it will allow him to experience “more different styles of baseball from around the globe, especially the batting strategy of international batters that would help to shape our game plans.”
During the press conference, manager Tseng pointed out that the biggest disappointment was that Yu Chang, the Pool A MVP during last year’s World Baseball Classic, was unavailable due to his injury. Chang, selected first overall in CPBL’s draft in June, has suffered from knuckle contusion since the end of August. However, Tseng hopes the younger bats will carry the team “with the fighting spirit Chang has displayed [in the WBC].”
Chinese Taipei will start their camp on 15 October in Doulio. A pair of practice games against Czechia will also be held at Taipei Dome on 2-3 November before the official schedule of Premier12 starts on 13 November for the Opening Round in Taipei.
World No. 2 Chinese Taipei will compete in Group B and face No.1 Japan, No. 6 Korea, No. 9 Cuba, No. 12 Dominican Republic and No. 15 Australia.
Group A will open on November 9 in Guadalajara and Tepic, Mexico. The hosts and world No. 2 Mexico will face No. 4 Venezuela, No. 5 USA, No. 7 Netherlands, No. 8 Puerto Rico and No. 10 Panama.