The curious case of Chin-Feng Chen

No. As in: No, Chin-Feng Chen will never make it as a major league regular. The once hotshot OF prospect seems to have fallen out of favor in the Dodgers system entirely after a hot start in A ball in 1999. Shoulder surgery the following season may have derailed his career, but it doesn't seem like it affected his power of bat speed; as recently as 2001, the wise know-it-alls at Baseball America were still salivating over the prospect's prospects. Here's some thoughts on Chen from an Arizona Fall League preview before the 2002 season. Don't know who this Kenny Kelly dude is and the inclusion of Drew Henson is (as we now know) a complete joke, but Chen was placed in some fine company with the likes of Austin Kearns, Hank Blalock and Carl Crawford. These days, it looks like Chen is getting the Erubiel Durazo treatment: he's almost 27 and stuck in Las Vegas limbo. Scouts decry his plate discipline (with great power often comes great piles of strikeouts, though) and his defense after a move to 1B. And then, of course, there's the stat inflation that comes from playing in the PCL, which has a reputation as a "hitters" league -- though my impression has always been that bad minor league stats are an negative predictor of major league potentital, but not necessarily the converse. There's some sentiment towards trading him to an AL team for use as a DH, which is what conventional wisdom suggests you want do with these all-hit, no-field types -- but there's also no interest. Who needs another Jack Cust? Chen will probably stay as AAA filler until he can qualify as a 6-year minor league free agent, then sign with someone else and rot on that team's AAA roster waiting for the tease of a September call-up year after year. Which isn't such a horrible fate: why, this guy made a pretty good career out of it.