Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) announced on Wednesday that foreign baseball players who meet certain conditions will be allowed to enter its draft. That goes for foreign players studying in Taiwan or players who have lived in Taiwan for more than five years and have played amateur baseball for longer than three years.
Additional foreign baseball athletes who meet the criteria are those who attended middle school or high school in Taiwan for at least three years, or those who went to a university in Taiwan for more than four consecutive years.
An example of someone who can take advantage of the new regulations is Japanese pitcher Takashio Masaki. Takashio has lived in Taiwan for five years and is applying for Taiwanese citizenship. He has been playing for Taiwan since 2017 as an amateur and is part of Taiwan’s 40-member roster for the Asian Baseball Championship. Takashio would be eligible for the draft even without naturalization.
The CPBL says that regulations in the past were based on the fact that the league previously had only four teams. It says that there are now five teams, and that a sixth team may be formed in the future.