In his first year playing in Taiwan in 2024, former Detroit Tiger Steven Moya led the Chinese Professional Baseball League by hitting 30 home runs with 99 RBIs. The TSG Hawks’ first baseman and outfielders’ club finished last in the standings.
In 2025, the Puerto Rico native leads the CPBL with 25 home runs with five games remaining on the Hawks’ regular season schedule. Not far behind Moya is Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions outfielder Lin An-Ko and Wei Chuan Dragons catcher Kungkuan Giljegiljaw with 23 homers each.
The 34-year-old earned back-to-back CPBL All-Star selections, but he did not play in this year’s game or participate in the Home Run Derby due to the sudden death of his wife, Elizabeth Esmeralda, in July. The Taipei Times reported that Moya’s wife fell chronically ill during a flight to Taiwan to watch her husband play in the CPBL All-Star Game. Despite efforts by the plane’s crew and medical personnel to resuscitate her, she was pronounced dead the following morning.
“I encourage you to hug your family, your wife, your husband, your children, and tell them that you love them,” Moya said in an on-field ceremony honoring his wife’s life a few days after her death, per mlive.com. “I didn’t have the chance to tell my wife that I love her for the last time, so now you have the chance.”
Moya’s recent success on the field was earned, not given, as he played just 51 Major League Baseball games with the Tigers from 2014-16 after signing with the club as a non-drafted free agent in 2008. After stints in Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan from 2018-21 and the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball in 2023, Moya has found a place where he can contribute regularly in Taiwan.
Moya, batting .313 this season, hit his 25th dinger of the year on Sunday in the Hawks’ 8-3 win over the Uni-Lions.
The Hawks are 27-2-26 in the second half of the CPBL season and own an overall record of 57-2-56. In fourth place, with an elimination number of one, they are five games behind the first-place CTBC Brothers.
The CPBL’s postseason begins on Oct. 10, followed by the Taiwan Series, which will occur from Oct. 18-26.
Photo: Steven Moya follows through on his RBI double to centerfield during the second inning of a baseball game against the Seattle Mariners, Thursday, June 23, 2016 in Detroit. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
