Cheng-Fei Lin

Cheng-Fei Lin (林承飛)

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 11", Weight 172 lb.

• High School Taoyuan Municipal Ping-Jen Senior High School

• Born April 8, 1997 in Taitung County Taiwan

BR register page

Biographical Information

Cheng-Fei Lin has played in the Chinese Professional Baseball League.

Lin represented Taiwan in the 2012 U-15 Baseball World Cup, and he hit .348/.448/.609 to star for Taiwan in the 2015 U-18 Baseball World Cup. That year, the Lamigo Monkeys took him in the second round after going for Po-Jung Wang in the first round. He got his first CPBL hit that fall, then homered off Po-Kai Lai on October 12 for his first homer. At age 18 years, 187 days, he was the youngest player to homer in a CPBL game, breaking Tzu-Hao Chen's record by 159 days. He was 4 for 10 with a double and a homer in the 2015 CPBL. He played in the Asian Winter League that year. In 2016, he hit .307/.362/.458 while fielding .976 at short. He was named to the Best Ten as the league's top shortstop.

The Taitung native had a sophomore slump at .265/.330/.412 while fielding .968 at short in 2017 but exploded in the 2017 Taiwan Series. After six regular-season homers, he took Cheng-Yu Hung deep in game 3 of the Series, the youngest player to homer in a Taiwan Series game, breaking Tai-Shan Chang's record (he was 22 in 1998). He also set a record with 8 RBI, breaking a mark shared by two players. He drove in two more in game 4 as Lamigo won it all and was presumably a top candidate for Taiwan Series MVP but that went to Chun-Hsiu Chen. Had he won Series MVP, he would have been the third Monkeys shortstop in six years to win the award; Chih-Sheng Lin won in 2012 and De-Long Yu in 2014. He represented Taiwan in the 2017 Asia Professional Baseball Championship after this season.

Lin was selected into the 2018 CPBL All-Star Game, and he was 2-for-4 with 2 doubles. He became the first player to crush a grand slam on his birthday, and he also reached his 200th career hit in the same game. Lin ended up hitting .300/.331/.455 in 2018, and he recorded a .300/.300/.350 batting line to helped the Monkeys beat the Uni-President Lions in 6 games in the 2018 Taiwan Series. Lin then played for Taiwan in the 2018 Asian Games. He improved to .277/.325/.496 with a career-high 14 homers in 2019, and he won another Best Ten award. He had a .267/.313/.533 batting line with a homer off Chi-Che Tsai in 2016 Taiwan Series Game 4, and helped the Monkeys beat the Brothers in 5 games.

The young infielder extended his solid performance in 2020 as he hit .296/.333/.463, but he slumped to .266/.304/.390 in 2021. He was selected into the 2022 CPBL All-Star Game, and he was 1-for-1. Lin still couldn't find back his batting, and he only recorded a .264/.328/.419 batting line in 2022. He was 1-for-5 in the 2022 Taiwan Series, and the Monkeys were swept by the Brothers. Lin hit .265/.296/.418 in 2023, and he had a .241/.241/.379 batting line in the 2023 Taiwan Series and the Monkeys lost to the Wei Chuan Dragons in 7 games.

Sources

• CPBL page
• Taiwan Baseball Wiki
• CPBL stats.com
• Taipei Times