Dodgers Minor League Baseball Blog

Like Tony Abreu and Ivan DeJesus, shortstop prospect Chin-lung Hu was across the board.  He didn’t show up at all on Baseball America’s list and he just made Kevin Goldstein’s at number ten.  John Sickels likes him the most though and actually had him all the way up at number five with a B rating.

Hu was signed out of Taiwan in early 2003 and he made his minor league debut at Ogden in that year.  A very good fielding shortstop (potential gold glove), Hu hit a solid .305 and while he didn’t steal a lot of bases, he legged out nine doubles and five triples and that resulted in an okay but not horrible .432 slugging.  He followed that up in 2004 with good season with stops at both Columbus and Vero Beach where once again he kept his batting average right around .300 with a slugging percentage in the low .400s between both stops.  In 2005, he got a full season at Vero Beach where he had his best season yet with a .313/.347/.430 line.  He didn’t draw a lot of walks (19 in 470 at bats) but he didn’t strke out to often either.

Then came 2006 and he appeared to take a step back in Double A.  There he managed a pretty poor .254/.326/336 line.  The good news is, he drew a lot more walks and while he struck out more, it wasn’t at the same pace as that walk increase. 

The good news is, he just turned 23 so even if he repeats Double A it wouldn’t be that huge of a deal although I expect to see him at Triple A Las Vegas at some point in the year.  Regardless, he’ll be an interesting guy to keep an eye on.