Taiwan Today

Representatives of the Chinese Professional Baseball League and its four pro teams met for four-and-a-half hours Dec. 14 to exchange views and hash out reforms in the wake of a major game-fixing scandal that shook the league to its foundations recently. The main topics touched upon in the heated discussion were game fixing prevention, the league’s draft system, free agency, minimum salaries and the waiver system. The representatives reached an initial consensus on proposed revisions concerning each of these issues, with the proposals pending approval by the league’s executive board at a meeting set for the end of December. On the draft system, the representatives agreed that the top selection in the following year’s draft should be awarded to the team that did not make the playoffs. The second and third picks should go to the team knocked out in the first round of the playoffs and the loser in the final series, respectively, with the champion to be given the last pick. The meeting participants said the proposed system would be more equitable than the current system and avoid such unfair situations as the Brother Elephants being awarded the top pick this year after making it to the championship series. As for minimum player salaries, CPBL Secretary-General Lee Wen-ping explained after the meeting that “everyone agreed on the figure of NT$70,000 (US$2,167) per month for major league players.” “For minor league players, those receiving a salary of less than NT$70,000 would be eligible for pension payments,” he added. The issue of free agency was the most discussed by the team reps, who eventually concluded that players should be eligible to become free agents after playing in the league for nine years. They also proposed that the period of eligibility could begin retroactively from the year 2003 when Taiwan’s two professional leagues were merged to form the current league. On the period of time after which a CPBL player would become eligible to play in a league overseas, the representatives agreed on a period of between five and seven years. Revisions were also proposed to the league’s waiver system, which has been heavily criticized by the players’ union. Under the current system, a player placed on waivers must wait until the second half of the next season to rejoin his original team. Under the proposed changes, waived players could become free agents after just one week, with all teams having the right to bid for their services. (SB)