The Uni-President Lions of the Taiwan-based Chinese Professional Baseball League have signed right-hander Austin Bibens-Dirkx to a contract for the 2019 season. NOWnews reported the signing last week (hat tip to CPBLStats.com) and Bibens-Dirkx confirmed the deal himself on his Instagram page (while also announcing that he and his wife Leah are expecting a baby in June — congratulations to the Bibens-Dirkx family!)
This will be the most far-flung destination yet for Bibens-Dirkx over a 13-year professional career that has seen him pitch for six different MLB organizations, as well as a couple of stints in independent baseball. The 33-year-old spent the last three seasons with the Rangers, which led to his first taste of Major League action. Bibens-Dirkx posted a 5.27 ERA, 5.6 K/9, and 2.09 K/BB rate over 114 1/3 innings for Texas in 2017-18, starting 12 of his 37 games played.
Bibens-Dirkx underwent knee surgery at the end of last season, though it doesn’t appear to have been too major a setback. (His Instagram page also has multiple posts chronicling Bibens-Dirkx’s offseason throwing sessions.) The Rangers outrighted Bibens-Dirkx off their 40-man roster in November and he elected to become a free agent.
Nice
Who?
Austin Bibens-Dirkx
Hope he does well, met him at Rangers fanfest last year and he was a very nice guy. Seemed like he legitimately enjoyed interacting with the fans
still didnt win a roster spot beyond that
Would’ve liked to see Texas give him a major league contract. ABD isn’t great but ir’s hard for me to believe the Rangers will break camp with 12 better pitchers next season.
Exactly. Decent middle reliever/spot starter, but they’re going to bank on younger I guess.
As a side note, I named my cat Mr. Bibens-Dirkx.
Nothing better than welcoming a baby into the world. Great for him.
What’s a “Uni-President”? What does it have to do w/ Lions?
The teams in the Taiwan league are all owned by sponsors, not dedicated to a home location. The mascots are pretty random. Uni-President is a huge FMCG group that also owns a stake in 7-11, which has a higher store-to-person density in Taiwan than anywhere else in the world.
I might be able to help with that. So baseball teams in Taiwan are all privately own by the local corporation.
They tend to view operating a professional baseball team as some form of advertisement and marketing. There’s also a little bit of social responsibility in there too.
Back in 1990, when the CPBL was established, the league actually designed the mascots first, and then in a way letting the teams to “draft” their choice of mascot.
However, newer franchises that joined the league after 1990 all of them design their own mascots to suit their corporate identity.
Using Taoyuan Lamigo Monkeys and Kaohsiung La New Bears as examples, both are more willing to integrate with the city, so their mascots are sort of a play on word with the city. (Similar sounding in Mandarin)
Austin Bibens-Dirkx… he sounds like a foppish dandy.
going to name the baby, if it’s a boy, austin bibens-dirkx-bibens-dirkx
The story I heard on a game one night was he grew up with just his mom, and when she remarried, her name became Bibens-Dirkx, and he took that name, too, I think out of respect for his stepdad. Nice guy. Wish him well.