The Yankees announced that they have released left-hander Brandon Leibrandt to sign with the CTBC Brothers of Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League. That move was previously reported by CPBL Stats.
Leibrandt, 32, signed a minor league deal with the Yankees in the offseason. He logged 41 Triple-A innings over nine starts and one long relief outing, allowing 2.85 earned runs per nine. He probably got a bit of help from his .245 batting average on balls in play and 87.8% strand rate, but his 22.7% strikeout rate and 8.6% walk rate were both solid figures while his 50.5% ground ball rate was quite strong.
Despite that cromulent performance, his path to big league playing time in the Bronx was steep. Despite several injuries, the Yankee rotation is in decent shape. They have Max Fried, Carlos Rodón, Clarke Schmidt, Will Warren and Ryan Yarbrough. They could get Marcus Stroman and JT Brubaker back soon, as both are on rehab assignments. Luis Gil is tossing bullpens and could be on his own rehab assignment in the coming weeks.
Leibrandt was therefore likely to be stuck in the minors but will head overseas instead. Presumably, he’ll be getting a bit of a pay bump while being able to explore the other side of the globe. It’s also possible that he could be exposed to scouts from other Asian leagues and earn himself future opportunities if he performs well. His major league track record currently consists of 15 1/3 innings with a 5.28 ERA.
Photo courtesy of Nathan Ray Seebeck, Imagn Images
Hope he does well. Always rooting for him.
Charlie is heading to the Bronx to give them a piece of his mind.
Apparently he was contemplating retirement. He just became a Dad. Hopefully he gets a nice bump in pay.
Not surprised as Yankees had no spot for Carrasco. So they’ve bid goodbye to Woodford, Leibrandt and DeSclafani in the last month or so.
Is he related to Charlie?
@Turks – Son of Charlie
Oh, Brothers.
They love the baseball in Taiwan. It’s a fun experience attending games if you can stand the heat and humidity. They rebrand as often as minor league team, well I guess a different corporation buys the team uses their name as part of the team name. My Taoyuan Lamigo Monkeys are now the Taoyuan Rakuten Monkeys. Good luck Brandon, son of Charlie.
This may be the first time I’ve ever read a serious sports article containing the word “cromulent,” which is, after all, a perfectly cromulent word. Anyways, good luck to Leibrandt with the team formerly known as the Brother Elephants.
Charlie don’t surf!