Manny Banuelos signs with Chinese Professional Baseball League

Left-hander Manny Banuelos has signed a deal with the Fubon Guardians of the Chinese Professional Baseball League, according to several reports out of Mexico (hat tip to the CPBL Stats website). Banuelos had most recently been a member of the Mariners organization, before Seattle released him from his minor-league contract at the start of June.

Last year marked Banuelos’ return to the majors, after he hadn’t pitched in the Show since tossing 26 1/3 innings as a rookie for Atlanta in 2015. Those interim years saw Banuelos bounce from the Braves to the Angels to the Dodgers before being dealt to the White Sox in November 2018. Banuelos tossed 50 2/3 innings for Chicago last season, starting eight of 16 appearances and posting a 6.93 ERA, 1.33 K/BB rate and 7.8 K/9.

Banuelos’ career has been stalled by injuries (particularly a Tommy John surgery that kept him from pitching in 2013) and a lack of consistency at Triple-A, let alone during his brief MLB career. Once a very highly touted prospect coming up in the Yankees’ farm system, Banuelos, 29, will now head to the New Taipei City-based Guardians to try and carve out a niche for himself in the CPBL. Chin-lung Hu, Henry Sosa and Fu-Te Ni are other former big leaguers also playing on Fubon’s roster.