Yi-Chuan Lin ( zh, 林益全; born 11 November 1985) is a
Taiwanese baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding ...
infielder for the
Uni-President Lions
The Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions, stylized as Uni-President 7-ᴇʟᴇᴠᴇn Lions, also known as Uni-Lions (), are a professional baseball team playing in the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL). The Lions are based in Tainan City, Ta ...
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 2 ...
(CPBL). He has previously played in the CPBL for the
Fubon Guardians
The Fubon Guardians () are a professional baseball team in the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) in Taiwan. The team is owned by Fubon Financial Holding Co. and play their home games at Xinzhuang Baseball Stadium in New Taipei City.
H ...
.
He was the first position player to be named Rookie of the Year and MVP in 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 2 ...
the same year.
Career
Sinon Bulls/EDA Rhinos/Fubon Guardians
Lin debuted for the
Taiwan national baseball team
The Chinese Taipei baseball team () is the national men's baseball team of the Republic of China (Taiwan). It is governed by the Chinese Taipei Baseball Association. The team is ranked second in the world by the World Baseball Softball Confeder ...
in the
2005 Asian Baseball Championship, which he led in home runs. He hit .250/.294/.313 as a part-time third sacker in the
2005 Baseball World Cup
The 2005 Baseball World Cup (BWC) was the 36th international Men's amateur baseball tournament. The tournament was sanctioned by the International Baseball Federation, which titled it the Amateur World Series from the 1938 tournament through the ...
. In the
2006 Intercontinental Cup
The 2006 IBAF Intercontinental Cup was held in Taichung, Taiwan from November 9 through the 19th. Eight countries contested the tournament, which was played at Taichung Baseball Field and the newly built Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadiu ...
, he hit .135/.158/.162 as the starting third baseman for Taiwan. He batted .306/.342/.500 in the
2007 World Port Tournament – he tied
Sidney de Jong
Sidney de Jong (born 14 April 1979) is a Dutch former baseball player.
De Jong represented the Netherlands at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens where he and his team finished sixth. He also represented the Dutch at the 2009 World Baseball Cla ...
for fifth in the tournament in home runs (2), tied
Yosvani Peraza
Yosvani Peraza Marín (Gordo) (born 2 febbraio 1979 in Pinar del Río, Cuba) is a baseball catcher in the Cuban National Series and Cuba national baseball team.
Peraza played for Cuba in the 1996 World Junior Baseball Championship, hitting .429 wi ...
for 6th in runs (6) and was 6th in RBI (5). His offensive production was similar to the USA's third baseman, top prospect
Pedro Alvarez. He helped Taiwan win a Silver Medal. In the
2007 Baseball World Cup
The 2007 Baseball World Cup (BWC) was the 37th international Men's amateur baseball tournament. The tournament was sanctioned by the International Baseball Federation, which titled it the Amateur World Series from the 1938 tournament through th ...
, Lin went 0 for 1 as the backup third baseman to
Tai-Shan Chang.
Lin hit .130/.231/.174 for Taiwan in the
2008 Final Olympic Qualification Tournament
8 (eight) is the natural number following 7 and preceding 9.
In mathematics
8 is:
* a composite number, its proper divisors being , , and . It is twice 4 or four times 2.
* a power of two, being 2 (two cubed), and is the first number of t ...
as the starting third baseman. Despite his struggles, they won a spot in the
2008 Summer Olympics. Lin had a couple defensive gaffes in a loss to the
South Korean national baseball team. In the second inning, he did not get to a grounder by
Dae-ho Lee that reporters said was within his range. Later in the inning, he again did not get to a ball in close range of third hit by
Jin-man Park
Park Jin-man (born November 30, 1976) is a retired South Korean baseball shortstop. He batted and threw right-handed. He won the KBO League Golden Glove Award five times, and was also the 2006 Korean Series MVP.
He competed for the South Kore ...
. The two plays, coupled with a
Che-Hsuan Lin
Che-Hsuan Lin (; born September 21, 1988) is a Taiwanese professional baseball outfielder for the Fubon Guardians of the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL). He played in Major League Baseball with the Boston Red Sox in 2012.
Career
Lin w ...
miscue, contributed to two Korean runs and the win.
Lin was the top pick in the 2007 CPBL draft, taken by the
Sinon Bulls
In Greek mythology, Sinon (Ancient Greek: Σίνων, from the verb "σίνομαι"—''sinomai'', "to harm, to hurt") or Sinopos, was a Greek warrior during the Trojan War.
Family
Sinon was the son of Aesimus, son of Autolycus. He was the ...
. He had played for the amateur Fubon Bull previously. He did not play in 2008, as he was fulfilling his military commitment. In late 2008, he announced that he didn't want to play for Sinon when he came out of the military and that he wanted to remain an amateur. Lin changed his mind and signed with Sinon in March 2009, inking a deal with a signing bonus equivalent to $145,000. That was the second-largest bonus in CPBL history, behind
Chung-Nan Tsai and even with
Chang-Wei Tu,
Chih-Yuan Chen
Chen Chih-yuan (; born 1975) is a picture book writer and illustrator from Taiwan. Several of his books have been translated into English, including ''Guji Guji'', the story of a ' crocoduck' described in a review by ''The New York Times'' as hav ...
and
Yi-Cheng Tseng.
Lin was 0 for 8 with two strikeouts as one of Taiwan's worst performers in the
2009 World Baseball Classic
The 2009 World Baseball Classic (WBC) was an international baseball competition. It began on 5 9 and finished 5 26.
Unlike in 2006, when the round-robin format of the first two rounds led to some eliminations being decided by run-difference t ...
.
Lin had a great pro debut. Manning first base and hitting 7th, he was 3 for 4 in Sinon's 2009 opener. He reached 100 hits in 249 AB and 62 games, the fastest player to that mark in CPBL history to that point. On August 13, he set new CPBL rookie records for RBI (77, surpassing
Tai-Shan Chang) and hits (119, breaking the mark held by
Chih-Wei Shih). He hit .348/.395/.543 for the 2009 CPBL campaign and drove in 113 runs, breaking
Tilson Brito
Tilson Manuel Brito Jiménez (born May 28, 1972 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic) is a Dominican former professional baseball third baseman. He played Major League Baseball, KBO League baseball, and Chinese Professional Baseball League ...
's CPBL record. He finished 4th in average (behind
Wu-Hsiung Pan,
Cheng-Min Peng and
Wilton Veras
Wilton Andrés Veras (born January 19, 1978) is a former backup third baseman in Major League Baseball who played from 1999 to 2000 for the Boston Red Sox. Listed at 6' 2", 198 lb., he batted and threw right-handed. He once held the Taiwanese ...
), second in hits (169, behind Veras) and third in home runs (18, behind
Chih-Sheng Lin and
Chin-Feng Chen
Chen Chin-feng (; born 28 October 1977) is a retired baseball outfielder who was the first Taiwan-born player playing in Major League Baseball in 2002. Chen is a Taiwanese aborigine of Siraya tribal ancestry.
Career
In 1999 in the Cal League ...
). He won a Gold Glove at first base and made the Best Ten. He was named Rookie of the Year and MVP, the third player and first position player ever to accomplish that double honor;
En-Yu Lin had been the last pitcher to pull off the feat (in 2005).
He played in the
2013 World Baseball Classic
The 2013 World Baseball Classic (WBC) was an international professional baseball competition, held from March 2 to March 19, 2013. This was the third iteration of the WBC, following the two previous tournaments, held in 2006 and 2009.
Unlike ...
. 2013
CPBL Home Run Derbychampion
A champion (from the late Latin ''campio'') is the victor in a challenge, contest or competition. There can be a territorial pyramid of championships, e.g. local, regional / provincial, state, national, continental and world championships, ...
.
Lin won the
Taiwan Series
Taiwan Series () is the championship series of the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL). It is usually played in late October or early November, after the regular season. It was formerly known as the ''CPBL Seasonal Championship Series'' () ...
with the then
EDA Rhinos EDA or Eda may refer to:
Computing
* Electronic design automation
* Enterprise Desktop Alliance, a computer technology consortium
* Enterprise digital assistant
* Estimation of distribution algorithm
* Event-driven architecture
* Exploratory ...
in 2016. Lin was in the Opening Day lineup for the
Fubon Guardians
The Fubon Guardians () are a professional baseball team in the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) in Taiwan. The team is owned by Fubon Financial Holding Co. and play their home games at Xinzhuang Baseball Stadium in New Taipei City.
H ...
in 2021.
Uni-President Lions
On January 19, 2023, Lin signed with the
Uni-President Lions
The Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions, stylized as Uni-President 7-ᴇʟᴇᴠᴇn Lions, also known as Uni-Lions (), are a professional baseball team playing in the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL). The Lions are based in Tainan City, Ta ...
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 2 ...
.
Career statistics
References
External links
IBAF siteHarry Weidemeijer's international tourney statsTaiwan Baseball BlogWorld Baseball Classic:
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lin, Yi-Chuan
1985 births
2009 World Baseball Classic players
2013 World Baseball Classic players
2015 WBSC Premier12 players
2017 World Baseball Classic players
Asian Games medalists in baseball
Baseball players at the 2010 Asian Games
Fubon Guardians players
EDA Rhinos players
Living people
Baseball players from Tainan
Sinon Bulls players
Medalists at the 2010 Asian Games
Asian Games silver medalists for Chinese Taipei