Well, no, Chu Yu-Hsien isn’t the best baseball player in the world. That’s still Mike Trout. But Chu Yu-Hsien might be the best baseball player that’s actually playing baseball games on this planet right now.
Who is Chu Yu-Hsien? Glad you asked. He’s a 28-year-old left-handed power hitter from Taiwan, who is currently crushing the baseball in the only professional baseball league that’s taking place right now on the planet. He plays for the Rakuten Monkeys in Taiwan’s CPBL and is the defending league Most Valuable Player after hitting .347/.395/.605 last season for Lamigo in 118 games.
OMG!!! #ChuYuHsien 8th homer of the season!!! #??? #CPBL @RakutenMonkeys pic.twitter.com/WkDgU32AXJ
— ELEVEN SPORTS TAIWAN (@ElevenSportsTW) April 25, 2020
On Saturday morning, at least it was Saturday morning here in the United States, he hit his 8th home run of the year. All eight of them have come against the Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions in just four games. Nowhere seems to have updated the stats through the eighth game of the season yet, but he entered the game hitting .536/.552/1.286 – good for an OPS of 1.837 with 36 total bases.
I’m all for the “on pace for” wild stats early in baseball seasons. And right now, he’s on pace for 120 home runs, which would probably be the record. Probably.