Chin-lung Hu is one of the players in camp trying for one of those final bench spots. Hu, who will be 27 this season, would be a historic player for the Mets organization if he gets any Major League playing time. He will be the first Taiwanese player to put on the Mets uniform and he will be the player with the shortest surname to put on the Mets uniform (when he put on the Dodgers uniform, he became the shortest surname in Major League history). Anyway, Hu is an infielder and looks to fill a role similar to Chris Woodward a few years back.
Hu first landed in America in 2003 in the Rookie level team for the Dodgers. In 2006 he got more international baseball experience as he played for the Chinese Taipei in the inaugural World Baseball Classic. He has had brief major league experience each year from 2007 to 2010, but hasn't had much success (or really that many AB's):
Career – 173 AB, .191 BA, .241 OBP, .283 SLG, 33 H, 4 2B, 3 3B, 2 HR, 17 RBI
The Mets acquired Chin-lung in December when they traded Mike Antonio to the Dodgers. While Hu's numbers are absolutely nothing to write home about, his minor league numbers are something to consider:
2010 – 208 AB, .317 BA, .339 OBP, .438 SLG, 66 H, 11 2B, 3B, 4 HR, 25 RBI
Those numbers aren't bad at all. Like all of the middle infielders that have been or will be featured in this profile series, it is really hard to make any sort of concrete prediction about Spring because of the amount of players trying for either starting second basemen or backup infielder. It should make for a fun Spring though.
