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Red Sox Sign Taiwanese Prospect Chih-Jung Liu

By Dylan A. Chase | October 23, 2019 at 2:30pm CDT

The Red Sox have agreed to terms with 20-year-old Taiwanese righthander Chih-Jung Liu for $750K, reports Pete Abraham of The Boston Globe (link).

Liu is a former two-way player with a fastball clocked as high as 98 mph in recent months. Abraham notes that a large high school workload forced Liu to abandon pitching in his first collegiate year with Taipei City’s Culture University, but a 2019 return to the bump yielded newfound velocity. Liu teamed with Red Sox infield prospect Tzu-Wei Lin on Taiwan’s national squad in this month’s Asian Baseball Championship series, taking home tournament MVP honors en route to his country’s first ABC gold medal. Liu is set to play for Taiwan in the upcoming Premier12 tournament, an Olympic qualifier trial.

Following the firing of former Team President Dave Dombrowski, it’s fair to say that the Red Sox farm has seen better days. MLB.com’s midseason ranking identified just one “Top 100” prospect within their system (infielder Triston Casas placed 85th), and other organizational rankings generally placed Boston’s young ranks as among the game’s bottom-third. Under the temporary leadership quartet of Eddie Romero, Zack Scott, Brian O’Halloran, and Raquel Ferreira, it appears that Boston’s operations staff is searching far and wide in their search for farm reinforcement.

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Boston Red Sox Transactions Chih-Jung Liu

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29 Comments

  1. Sasha C. Handelman

    6 years ago

    Should start career in either High A or AA. Sox definitely have intriguing arms in Ward, Groome, Mata, Houck, Song and now Liu

    2
    Reply
    • StandUpGuy

      6 years ago

      Interesting. I have never heard of a Taiwanese player. Hopefully it will work out and the league will get another stellar 2-way player. I wouldn’t get my hopes too high though. Great free agent prospects sign more millions, not thousands. It’s also a little concerning that he had to take time off from pitching due to a work overload in highschool. High school pitchers shouldn’t be overworked like that. It can cause a permanent inability to stay healthy for long periods of time.

      Reply
      • jorge78

        6 years ago

        Overworking high school pitchers is quite common in Asia.
        It’s a thing….

        Reply
        • StandUpGuy

          6 years ago

          It sounds like it’s more of an epidemic than a thing. I mean… To the point that kids have to take entire seasons off from pitching in college? How is pitching a few more innings in high school more important than pitching an entire season+ in college? How selfish can high school coaches get? When an athelete is not an adult coaches are supposed to put the athletes health and future over everything else.

          Reply
        • kahnkobra

          6 years ago

          yet, i bet Tommy John surgery isnt an epidemic out there

          Reply
      • vtadave

        6 years ago

        Chien-Ming Wang and Hong-Chih Kuo are a couple recent examples.

        Reply
        • spinach

          6 years ago

          Wei-yin Chen too I believe.

          Reply
        • deweybelongsinthehall

          6 years ago

          Cost is minimal. They need to replenish depth so that when the opportunity knocks, they have the horses to trade. That said, take most reviews with a grain of salt. The Sox trades in 18 with Tampa and the Angels proves they had better than was assessed then. They and every team have players who will surprise as well as disappoint.

          Reply
        • RedSox4Life4ever

          6 years ago

          And the story itself mentioned Tzu-Wei Lin

          1
          Reply
  2. Sasha C. Handelman

    6 years ago

    Sox pitching is starting to reload with Mata, Ward, Groome, Song and now Liu! Good start

    1
    Reply
    • Ketch

      6 years ago

      I think the Sox do have to wait a couple years for Song, as he has a commitment to the navy,

      Reply
      • carrigansghost

        6 years ago

        That commitment can be waived now. He did attend summer workouts before attending school.

        Reply
      • Bruin1012

        6 years ago

        Noah has petitioned to have his service time delayed until after his pro career. It is up to the Navy on whether or not they will allow it. He can only petition it’s not an automatic waiver. Hopefully the Navy recognizes that he has a short time to be a pro baseball player and will allow him to defer until he retires. If they do it’s the steal of the draft.

        2
        Reply
        • carrigansghost

          6 years ago

          Actually he has not yet formally asked to delay. I do agree that it was a great draft choice.

          Reply
        • Bruin1012

          6 years ago

          Actually he has already requested just waiting to see if it is accepted or not.

          Reply
        • Bruin1012

          6 years ago

          Should know sometime in November whether he will be serving in the military next two years or if he is free to pitch with Boston.

          Reply
    • Priggs89

      6 years ago

      Groome has a long way to go before he should be considered an interesting prospect again. The kid just can’t stay healthy.

      1
      Reply
      • keysox

        6 years ago

        He sucks

        1
        Reply
  3. User 4245925809

    6 years ago

    Was a cpl scouts in the outing vs Japan had him at 100-101mph tops. Interesting to see what they have here. Remember last time they went into Taiwan results not so good. Lin was the only one who made it, several others they gave 300k and up to never did, tho another Taiwanese kid named Lin Che hsuan did get into a handful of games several years back, it’s not proven fruitful yet.

    Reply
  4. Bruin1012

    6 years ago

    I really like this signing it shows that the Sox are taking reloading seriously and casting a wide net for talent.

    Reply
  5. Michael Birks

    6 years ago

    He turned 21 in August..Plenty of time for redemption

    Reply
  6. pasha2k

    6 years ago

    I hope they don’t give up on the injured players. I do like what they’re doing, but Groome has potential if he stays healthy.

    Reply
    • Bruin1012

      6 years ago

      They won’t give up on Groome but it is up to Groome to show he is healthy and matured. He looked good at the end of the season he had such good mechanics hopefully that will lead to be able to come back fully from Tommy John.

      Reply
  7. madmc44

    6 years ago

    We may lose Holt, JD, , Moreland and others to Free Agency. I would like some consideration for Eric Sogard–a FA with Tampa. I like the way the guy plays the game. He’s a gamer like Holt. He may be available for a few dollars less than Holt

    Reply
    • Sasha C. Handelman

      6 years ago

      I like the suggestion of Sogard as a fall back option to Brock.
      Though I think Sox and Holt find common ground and he stays

      1
      Reply
    • User 4245925809

      6 years ago

      If Boston is looking to get under the cap this season, believe they will be more than fine filling utility role internally with combo of Tzu wei lin-marco Hernandez and letting Chavis play 2nd. Sure, it would be outstanding if Holt would take some kind of discount to come back since he loves the city and is VERY active in it, but with him just having perhaps his best season, capable of playing 6 positions, I see him possibly getting upwards of 10m AAV short term deal.

      Reply
      • deweybelongsinthehall

        6 years ago

        Can’t see that kind of annual commitment even on a short deal for Holt. His value has been his versatility + cost. @$10m per, he needs to play every day which is something Holt has never done for a full year. Either injuries, just being inconsistent (early in career) or just being worn down has always prevented him from doing so. I want him to get the best deal he can and while there no longer is a loyalty factor in sports, he might take his best offer back to ownership to see if they will match it.

        Reply
  8. hacker1

    6 years ago

    What’s the plans for Daulton?

    Reply
  9. StandUpGuy

    6 years ago

    Is it not? I don’t know much about the situation in Asia surrounding high school baseball pitchers. If overuse of high school pitchers is a well known thing there I don’t know why Tommy John surgery wouldn’t be common as well. I guess maybe they don’t have as many experienced surgeons with that particular type of expertise? I don’t know. I wouldn’t really consider Tommy John surgery itself an epidemic though. I think it is more of a best available solution to the overuse epidemic. Tommy John surgery isn’t the problem. The coaches exploiting there own pitchers arms to the point that Tommy John surgery is required is the problem. A lot of that could come from coaches looking at the successful results of TJ surgery and deducing it is not a big deal if they over use there pitchers because they think that is always an option. Now that is messed up and probably contributes to the overuse epidemic.

    Reply

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