HAKANIN.Sports

As Joe Torre ended his tenure with the Yankees, it appears that he is not going to be without jobs for too long.

It is reported that since Grady Little resigned/forced out of the Dodger organization, Torre has reached agreement with the team for a 3-year, $14.5 million contract. While his presence will be an upgrade from Little (track record wise), this may not be the most ideal situation for our own Chin-Lung Hu.

Torre is known for riding on his veterans and seldom jump to unproven talents. Perhaps it’s in his style, or perhaps it is due to the pressure of managing for the Yankees where the “win now” mentality trumps all. So that limits Hu’s chance of developing in the big league level. In fact, other rookies like Andy LaRoche and Tony Abreu should be concerned as well about their big league future. With Rafael Furcal being the most paid infielder, as long as he remain healthy and relatively productive, Hu will be blocked behind him and the emerging young Preston Mattingly (whose father might follow Torre to L.A., btw). Little Mr. Baseball was ranked as the 10th top prospect of the Dodger system, also the most athletic player, so he is definitely a threat to Hu’s playing time. Hu has been red hot this past year, hitting a combined .325/.364/.507 in AA and AAA, and also received the honor of MVP of the Future game during All-Star break. Yet, his age at 24 is near the end “prospect stage” so the next couple years will be crucial for his career.

With Torre returning to the NL, perhaps he will have a different approach with his players under a different organization, not to mention owner. Either way, Hu better have a solid spring training and such to establish his value to be on the roster, or even a trade piece to move on to a different organization where he has more opportunity to play and improve himself.

- Paul

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Filed under: Chin-Lung Hu, MLB, Sports, Taiwan