Tagged: Kyung-Min Na

Scouting Report: CF Pin-Chieh Chen

Over the past few seasons, the Chicago Cubs have shown their deep investment in Asian prospects through multiple free agent signings that have landed many foreign born players on the Boise Hawks roster.

Most notable of these recent acquisitions was Korean born short stop Hak-Ju Lee, who played in Boise during the 2009 season and is now rated the number 92 prospect in minor league baseball by Baseball America.This season the Hawks may have received their best overseas prospect yet in 19-year-old Pin-Chieh Chen from Kaohsiung City, Taiwan.

Despite being considerably slower than his counterpart Kyung-Min Na — signed by the Chicago Cubs in 2010 out of Seoul, Korea — Chen boasts a well-rounded skill set, while Na showed deficiencies at the plate.

Through six games with the Hawks, Chen is leading the team in batting average at .440 and is second in both slugging and on-base plus slugging to Paul Hoilman.

Chen is very comfortable in centerfield and shows good range while making only minimal tracking mistakes. He also has an above average arm, and has yet to commit an error thus far in 2011.

On June 23, Chen started in centerfield over Na, who started the majority of the 2010 season in center for the Hawks.

Though short season Class-A is the only level Chen has amounted to thus far in his short career, he should expect continued promotion in the Cubs organization over the next year. Na was promoted as high as Class AA Tennessee (majority of top prospects), with little success at the plate at each level.

Overall, it can be seen that Chen is an incredible all around prospect in the Chicago Cubs organization with plus hitting and fielding ability and above average speed. Though the season may have just started, Hawks fans are running out of time to see Chen in action.

After three games, Hawks show top-heavy hitting ability

brandon may.jpgThough only three games have been played by the Hawks in a still very young 2010 season, Boise has shown a very lopsided hitting performance throughout the lineup against the Yakima Bears.

Yes, the Hawks won their first opening series in God knows how long (at least since 2005 from the records I found), but the victories were delivered by the hitting successes of three players: Brandon May, Wes Darvill and Jesus Morelli. Combined, the three sluggers have accounted for nine of the team’s 11 RBIs, 14 of the team’s 21 hits and five of the team’s 12 runs; while averaging .391 to the rest of the team’s .089.
Clearly there is no reason to get alarmed after the first week of baseball, but some strengths and weaknesses thus far should be highlighted.
In each of the first three games of the season, South Korea national, Na Kyung-Min has led off for the club and has a .000 batting average in 11 at bats with three walks and three runs scored. Though the statistics may not praise Na early, his numbers do show strong plate discipline and base running ability (Na has two stolen bases on the season). In addition, the Chicago Cubs are no notorious for finding strong Korean talent (see Hak-Ju Lee, 2009), so we’ll give him some time to develop.
Hawks veteran, George Matheus is 1-8 through the first three games, and also has a low average of .091.
On the pitching side of things, skipper Jody Davis is limiting his hurlers to around three innings, while Juan Yasser Serrano (1-0) stayed on the mound through the fourth inning in Sunday’s win against the Bears.
Davis will send Austin Kirk to the mound against the hated, Salem-Keizer Volcanoes in Memorial Stadium’s, Monday night opener. He is in his second season with the club and will try to improve on his 2009 statistics when he went 1-1 with a 5.40 in two appearances.