Chen Kuan-yu (), born October 29, 1990 in

New Taipei City New Taipei City is a special municipality located in northern Taiwan. The city is home to an estimated population of 3,974,683 as of 2022, making it the most populous city of Taiwan, and also the second largest special municipality by area, be ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

, is a Taiwanese

professional baseball Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in baseball league, leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Mod ...

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

for the

Rakuten Monkeys The Rakuten Monkeys (), formerly First Financial Holdings Agan (, abbreviated ), La New Bears () and then the Lamigo Monkeys (), are a professional baseball team in the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) in Taiwan. Owned and administer ...

of the

Chinese Professional Baseball League The Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL; ) is the top-tier professional baseball league in Taiwan. The league was established in 1989 and played the first season in 1990. CPBL eventually absorbed the competing Taiwan Major League in 20 ...

(CPBL). He has previously played in

Nippon Professional Baseball or NPB is the highest level of baseball in Japan. Locally, it is often called , meaning ''Professional Baseball''. Outside Japan, it is often just referred to as "Japanese baseball". The roots of the league can be traced back to the formation ...

(NPB) for the Yokohama BayStars/Yokohama DeNA BayStars and

Chiba Lotte Marines The are a professional baseball team in Japan's Pacific League based in Chiba City, Chiba Prefecture, in the Kantō region, and owned by Lotte Holdings Co., Ltd. History The Marines franchise began in 1950 as the Mainichi Orions, an inaugural ...

Career

Yokohama BayStars

While a student at

National Taiwan Sport University The National Taiwan Sport University (NTSU; ) is a public university specialized in sports in Taoyuan, Taiwan. History NTSU was originally established as National College of Physical Education and Sports on 1 July 1987. On 1 February 2008, th ...

, Chen signed a 3-year ''ikusei'' (development) contract with the

Yokohama BayStars The are a professional baseball team in the Japan, Japanese Central League. Their home field is Yokohama Stadium, located in central Yokohama. The team has been known by several names since becoming a professional team in 1950. It adopted its c ...

of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) in February, 2011. Chen underwent

Tommy John surgery Ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction, colloquially known as Tommy John surgery (TJS), is a surgical graft procedure where the ulnar collateral ligament in the medial elbow is replaced with either a tendon from elsewhere in the patient's bo ...

in 2012 and did not appear in a game that season, returning late in the 2013 season. On July 11, 2014 Chen was promoted from development player to a regular team contract (with his uniform number changing from 118 to 59) and made his official professional debut three days later at Mazda Zoom-Zoom Stadium versus the

Hiroshima Carp The is a professional baseball team based in Hiroshima, Hiroshima, Hiroshima, Japan. They compete in the Central League of Nippon Professional Baseball. The team is primarily owned by the Matsuda family, led by , who is a descendant of Mazda ...

. However, his debut game did not go well, and soon after Chen was demoted to the ni-gun squad and subsequently was released from the team in October of that same year.

Chiba Lotte Marines

Chen joined the free agent player tryouts for the

of NPB in November, 2014, and after a successful tryout was signed to a one-year, 6 million

Japanese Yen The is the official currency of Japan. It is the third-most traded currency in the foreign exchange market, after the United States dollar (US$) and the euro. It is also widely used as a third reserve currency after the US dollar and the ...

contract in December. In the 2015 preseason, Chen earned a spot in the Lotte starting rotation and made his debut with the team in the opening series in Fukuoka versus the defending champion

SoftBank Hawks The are a Japanese professional baseball team based in Fukuoka, Fukuoka Prefecture. They compete in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) as a member of the Pacific League. The team was formerly known as the Nankai Hawks and was based in Osaka. ...

. That start ended in a loss, and for the first few months of the season Chen split time between the ichi-gun team and the ni-gun team in Urawa. However, by the summer Chen was back with the ichi-gun team on a permanent basis, and in the push for a

Climax Series The is the current annual playoff system implemented by Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB). It determines which team from the Central League (CL) and from the Pacific League (PL) will advance to compete for the championship in the Japan ...

spot he proved invaluable, finishing the regular season with 14 2/3 consecutive innings pitched without an earned run. Chiba Lotte resigned Chen for the 2016 season on January 6, 2016 with a 183% salary increase (to 17 million yen). On December 11, 2020, he become a free agent.

Rakuten Monkeys

Chen subsequently returned to Taiwan, and was selected second overall in the 2021

draft, by the

. Chen made his CPBL debut on August 24, 2021.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chen, Kuan-yu 1990 births Living people Asian Games medalists in baseball Asian Games silver medalists for Chinese Taipei Baseball players at the 2010 Asian Games Baseball players at the 2014 Asian Games Baseball players from New Taipei Chiba Lotte Marines players Medalists at the 2010 Asian Games Medalists at the 2014 Asian Games National baseball team players Nippon Professional Baseball pitchers Taiwanese expatriate baseball players in Japan Yokohama BayStars players Yokohama DeNA BayStars players 2017 World Baseball Classic players 2023 World Baseball Classic players