Random Athlete Of The Day: Chin-Feng Chen

Chin-Feng Chen is the first ever position player from Taiwan to play in the MLB. He was born in Tainan City, and made moves to America to play Major League Baseball. In 1999 the Los Angeles Dodgers signed him as amateur free agent. Chen showed off his foreign power, and was a beast in High A Ball. In 510 AB’s, he hit 31 homeruns, 132 RBI’s, stole 31 bases, and batted .316. And in Baseball Pre-2000 Chen was the #17 prospect. But In 2000 and 2001 his numbers suffered and he was promoted and demoted from A+ to AA. In 2002 as Baseball America’s #64 prospect, Chen finally made it to Las Vegas (AAA) and hit 26 bombs and drove in  84 RBI’s before he was called up in September. 

As I said earlier Chin-Feng Chen was the first ever Taiwan-born position player to play in the Majors, unfortunately he wasn’t able to be the first player to get a hit in the majors (Chin-Hui Tsao is responsible for that honor). As a September call-up Chen was only able to get 6 plate appearances, he collected for zero hits, struckout 3x, and walked once. Consequently he was sent back down to AAA, and once again he hit 26 dingers to only be called back up…for one at bat (where he would not get a hit). In 2004, still in AAA Chen hit 20 homeruns and was called back up. He got a career high 10 plate appearances, but once again failed to get that big league hit. He was in Las Vegas one last time in 2005, and out of his 8 AB’s he finally got 2 hits! Woohoo!

Chin-Feng Chen would retire from the MLB in 2005, and went back to Taiwan to play baseball.

His career  stats in the Minors were: 892 Hits, 146 Homeruns, 579 RBI’s, 77 SB’s, and a batting average of .283.

His career stats in the Majors were: 22 AB’s, 3 Runs, 2 Hits, 2 RBI’s. 3 BB’s, 10 strikeouts, and a batting average of .091.

After the MLB Chin-Feng went to play for the La New Bears in Taiwan in the CPBL. He led the team in batting average and RBI’s. He also led the Bears to a championship and won the MVP. He then entertained offers from clubs in Korea and Japan but decided to dominate the Taiwan league.

Since 2006, Chen has hit .330 with 509 hits, 95 homeruns, 341 RBI’s, 50 SB’s in his 426 games in the CPBL.

I wonder what would happen if his parents got divorced and remarried. He would probably have too many hyphens but an amazing name to say fast 10x.

-Schotz