Chen, Francis #39

It was a maddening year for Francis Chen. After breaking onto the scene with a .241-.268-.537 season that showed as many gaping flaws as huge promises, Chen's sophomore season proved to be all disappointment. Out of the gate, Chen stumbled with a .210-.333-.419 line, although his OBP and relative SLG showed some glimmer of hope if Chen could find the ability to make consistent contact. However, Chen only plunged to further depths of atrocity, going .125-.263-.250 in May and never getting better, eventually ending his season with a quite pitiful .179-.307-.417 line. While analysts and scouts everywhere knew Chen would be an inconsistent enigma, even his most pessimistic critics didn't expect him to flame out this early. The future holds great uncertainty for the once promising Chen, although his ending line for the 2005 postseason run to the world series may yet leave a lingering bit of hope: .244-.400-.805 in 12 games, with a team-leading 7 homeruns.

Another year of the Francis Chen experiment, and another round of… well, it’s hard to tell these days. Chen got the chance to play nearly the whole season this year, starting 128 games and accumulating 546 plate appearances. He went .212-.336-.480, setting a career high for OBP, and improved upon his AVG and SLG from the previous year, yet still remained highly unsatisfactory, with only average OBP and SLG numbers to go with his typically abysmal AVG. Yet as always, Chen showed glimmers of hope, with a few months of good OBP and SLG (his September .256-.369-.610 is a particular standout) – just not quite consistently good enough and not improving fast enough for fans and management. Chen did improve on his base-stealing, however, swiping 26 bags in 30 attempts – good for #3 on the team and extraordinary considering Chen’s low OBP.

2029 season currently underway!