Chen Kuan-yu (; born October 29, 1990) is a Taiwanese professional

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("Pitch (baseball), pitches") the Baseball (ball), baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of out (baseball), retiring a batter (baseball), batter, ...

for the Rakuten Monkeys 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 is a professional baseball league and the highest level of baseball in Japan. Locally, it is often called , meaning simply ''Professional Baseball''; outside of Japan, NPB is often referred to as "Japanese baseball". The roots of the league ...

(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, Chiba, Chiba City, Chiba Prefecture, in the Kantō region, and owned by Lotte Holdings, Lotte Holdings Co., Ltd. The Marines were a founding member of the Pacific Le ...

Career

Yokohama BayStars

While a student at National Taiwan Sport University, Chen signed a 3-year ''ikusei'' (development) contract with the Yokohama BayStars of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) in February, 2011. Chen underwent

Tommy John surgery Ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction, sometimes referred to as Tommy John surgery 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 body, ...

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, 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 founder Jujiro Matsuda ...

. 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 and the euro. It is also widely used as a third reserve currency after the US dollar and the euro. Th ...

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

Rakuten Monkeys

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

draft, by the Rakuten Monkeys. 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 Rakuten Monkeys players Taiwanese expatriate baseball players in Japan Yokohama BayStars players Yokohama DeNA BayStars players 2017 World Baseball Classic players 2023 World Baseball Classic players