Saturday, April 16, 2005
Taking it on the Chen
I’ve been awake for awhile now. Saw the clock approaching 3:00 a.m., tried to fight it, couldn’t fight it and here I am about four hours later.
Just made a coffee run, had to add some sugar and now wondering if I added a little too much.
I haven’t checked the late scores last night; I faded out by 10:00, which still doesn’t explain the ultra-early wake-up. I’ll be heading over to an Internet scoreboard shortly to check them out.
Watched mostly Yanks-Orioles last night. A great pitchers’ duel between Bruce Chen and Carl Pavano went by the wayside rather quickly, as Baltimore scored seven in an inglorious sixth inning for the Yankees. It lasted about 40:00, as Baltimore batted around and beat up Pavano and then the ineffective Felix Rodriguez.
What can I say about Bruce Chen after his stellar complete game last night? I mean before last weekend, I wasn’t even sure the guy was still in the majors. In two starts, both against the Yankees, his numbers looks like this:
1-0, 1.80 ERA, 15 IP, 12 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 9 K
As he closes in on an engineering degree, maybe he’s realizing that playing baseball for a living is a helluva lot more fun than being an engineer. No offense, engineers who might be reading this. I’m sure whatever you do is fun too, in its own special way.
Here are Chen’s places of employment since 2000:
2000
Atlanta Braves
2000
Philadelphia Phillies
2001
New York Mets
2001
Philadelphia Phillies
2002
Cincinnati Reds
2002
Montreal Expos
2002
New York Mets
2003
Boston Red Sox
2003
Houston Astros
2004
Baltimore Orioles
2005
Baltimore Orioles
That’s a staggering amount of teams in a little over five seasons, in this or any other era. I believe no one else has duplicated this “feat” in baseball history. Nine team changes in five years.
And you know what? Looking at his career totals, the guy hasn’t been terrible.
23-20, 4.36, 516 IP, 485 H, 211 BB, 441 K
He’s cutting it close, but there’s no way I would’ve said that Bruce Chen has a winning record in the major leagues.
How does one explain why a guy, who at his best is at least a decent starting pitcher, has bounced around so much in such a short period of time?
Chen, if you’ll recall, was a highly touted prospect of the Braves’ in the late 90s. They had high hopes that he would fill an inevitable void in their rotation as the The Big 3’s careers wound down. It didn’t happen.
In baseball, it takes a long time for labels to fade, good or bad. And I assume that’s one of the reasons that Chen remained a somewhat enticing acquisition. He was a lefty, he was still young and if the Braves had thought he had promise, then he was worth a shot.
Until the day when I write the sure-to-be-a-classic The Biography of Bruce Chen, I won’t know the gritty details, but it looks like Chen was a classic candidate to be the penultimate Major League nomad.
1) Left-handed
2) Highly touted prospect
3) Still young
4) Intelligent
5) Not a great fastball or any other “Wow” factors
6) Essentially an average pitcher
In other words, he was good enough to acquire and easy enough to let go.
I’m sure there are other factors that play into it: maybe he’s moody, maybe he’s not easy to coach. Mind you, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a discouraging word about Bruce Chen’s character, but it’s hard to quantify those types of things.
What matters now is that Chen, still only 27 years old, appears to be trying to remake himself as that well-weathered baseball character, the “crafty left-hander.” See: Jamie Moyer. The “crafty left-hander” relies more on guile than gas, using a change of pace pitch or breaking ball to set up his underwhelming fastball.
How many times have we heard an announcer point out the effectiveness of an 86 mph fastball that’s been preceded by a couple of 80 mph change-ups? So far this season it’s worked for Chen against an over-eager Yankee line-up.
I don’t have the exact number of cases, but it seems like baseball history is littered with quirky stories about left-handed pitchers who finally figured out their craft at a later age. It usually involves the loss of some juice on their fastball, an understanding of the importance of location and varying speeds, and the realization that it’s fun to tie sluggers up in knots that are trying to cream your slop.
I’m not about to stake anything valuable on the idea that Bruce Chen is all of a sudden going to turn into a consistent winning pitcher. However, if his first two starts this year are any indication, that engineering position can be put on hold for a little while longer.
I’ve been awake for awhile now. Saw the clock approaching 3:00 a.m., tried to fight it, couldn’t fight it and here I am about four hours later.
Just made a coffee run, had to add some sugar and now wondering if I added a little too much.
I haven’t checked the late scores last night; I faded out by 10:00, which still doesn’t explain the ultra-early wake-up. I’ll be heading over to an Internet scoreboard shortly to check them out.
Watched mostly Yanks-Orioles last night. A great pitchers’ duel between Bruce Chen and Carl Pavano went by the wayside rather quickly, as Baltimore scored seven in an inglorious sixth inning for the Yankees. It lasted about 40:00, as Baltimore batted around and beat up Pavano and then the ineffective Felix Rodriguez.
What can I say about Bruce Chen after his stellar complete game last night? I mean before last weekend, I wasn’t even sure the guy was still in the majors. In two starts, both against the Yankees, his numbers looks like this:
1-0, 1.80 ERA, 15 IP, 12 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 9 K
As he closes in on an engineering degree, maybe he’s realizing that playing baseball for a living is a helluva lot more fun than being an engineer. No offense, engineers who might be reading this. I’m sure whatever you do is fun too, in its own special way.
Here are Chen’s places of employment since 2000:
2000
Atlanta Braves
2000
Philadelphia Phillies
2001
New York Mets
2001
Philadelphia Phillies
2002
Cincinnati Reds
2002
Montreal Expos
2002
New York Mets
2003
Boston Red Sox
2003
Houston Astros
2004
Baltimore Orioles
2005
Baltimore Orioles
That’s a staggering amount of teams in a little over five seasons, in this or any other era. I believe no one else has duplicated this “feat” in baseball history. Nine team changes in five years.
And you know what? Looking at his career totals, the guy hasn’t been terrible.
23-20, 4.36, 516 IP, 485 H, 211 BB, 441 K
He’s cutting it close, but there’s no way I would’ve said that Bruce Chen has a winning record in the major leagues.
How does one explain why a guy, who at his best is at least a decent starting pitcher, has bounced around so much in such a short period of time?
Chen, if you’ll recall, was a highly touted prospect of the Braves’ in the late 90s. They had high hopes that he would fill an inevitable void in their rotation as the The Big 3’s careers wound down. It didn’t happen.
In baseball, it takes a long time for labels to fade, good or bad. And I assume that’s one of the reasons that Chen remained a somewhat enticing acquisition. He was a lefty, he was still young and if the Braves had thought he had promise, then he was worth a shot.
Until the day when I write the sure-to-be-a-classic The Biography of Bruce Chen, I won’t know the gritty details, but it looks like Chen was a classic candidate to be the penultimate Major League nomad.
1) Left-handed
2) Highly touted prospect
3) Still young
4) Intelligent
5) Not a great fastball or any other “Wow” factors
6) Essentially an average pitcher
In other words, he was good enough to acquire and easy enough to let go.
I’m sure there are other factors that play into it: maybe he’s moody, maybe he’s not easy to coach. Mind you, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a discouraging word about Bruce Chen’s character, but it’s hard to quantify those types of things.
What matters now is that Chen, still only 27 years old, appears to be trying to remake himself as that well-weathered baseball character, the “crafty left-hander.” See: Jamie Moyer. The “crafty left-hander” relies more on guile than gas, using a change of pace pitch or breaking ball to set up his underwhelming fastball.
How many times have we heard an announcer point out the effectiveness of an 86 mph fastball that’s been preceded by a couple of 80 mph change-ups? So far this season it’s worked for Chen against an over-eager Yankee line-up.
I don’t have the exact number of cases, but it seems like baseball history is littered with quirky stories about left-handed pitchers who finally figured out their craft at a later age. It usually involves the loss of some juice on their fastball, an understanding of the importance of location and varying speeds, and the realization that it’s fun to tie sluggers up in knots that are trying to cream your slop.
I’m not about to stake anything valuable on the idea that Bruce Chen is all of a sudden going to turn into a consistent winning pitcher. However, if his first two starts this year are any indication, that engineering position can be put on hold for a little while longer.
