Pavel Chadim

• Bats Left, Throws Right
• Height 6' 0", Weight 176 lb.

• Born July 8, 1971

Biographical Information

Pavel Chadim was a star outfielder in the Extraliga who played for the Czech national team in their first three European Championship appearances. He then became a coach and helped with youth baseball development in Czechia.

Chadim played for the champion Technika Brno in 1993-1994 but the only Extraliga stats available for this period are home runs (he hit five over the two seasons). He played for the Czech team in the 1994 B-Level European Championship, their first tournament. In 1995, he moved to Draci Brno and would play on eight straight titlists there to give him ten championships in a row. In '95, he hit .299/.371/.448 and pitched briefly (0-1, 4.26). He tied for 7th in the Extraliga with 28 runs and his 20 swipes tied Tomáš Ovesný for the league lead.

Pavel produced at a .431/.461/.624 clip in 1996 with 40 runs, 14 doubles and 16 steals and again pitched a little (1-0, 1.13 in 8 IP). He tied former US minor leaguer Pavel Budský for 2nd with 47 hits (2 behind Ivo Kučera), was 4th in average, ranked 10th in slugging and OPS (between Aleš Navrátil and Josef Srbecký in OPS), was 3rd in runs (behind Budský and Ovesný), led in steals again (one more than Kučera), led in doubles (14, 3 ahead of Jirí Víšek), tied for 4th in triples (2), tied Kučera for 4th in extra-base hits (17), was 4th with 68 total bases and was 6th in Offensive Wins Above Replacement (1.5, between Roman Talda and Ovesný). He was with the Czechs for the B-Level Euros as they won a spot in the next year's European Championship.

He hit .402/.429/.540 in 1997 but failed to make the league leaders in any offensive stats. He did make it in his last year as a pitcher (1-3, 4.15), placing 8th in ERA. He made the Czech squad for the 1997 European Championship. In '98, he hit 7 triples in 123 at-bats and batted .398/.408/.642. He tied for 9th in RBI (32), was 3rd with 49 hits (behind Roger Deago and Kučera), was 4th in runs (between Budský and Talda), tied Richard Dvořák for 6th with 12 swipes, tied Tomáš Přibyl for 6th with 10 doubles, led in three-baggers (3 ahead of Kučera), tied for 4th with 19 extra-base hits and was 5th with 79 total bases (between Miroslav Víšek and Jirí Víšek).

In 1999, he topped .400 in both the regular season (.447/.519/.638) and postseason (.423/.500/.538). He was 5th in average, 5th in OBP and 8th in OPS. He hit .389/.389/.444 for the Czechs in the round-robin of the 1999 European Championship, going 3-for-3 in steals. His 7 hits were one behind team leader Budský and he tied former big leaguer Robert Eenhoorn and Andrei Selivanov for 5th in swipes. In the quarterfinals and 5th-8th placement games, though, he was 1 for 10 as their starting center fielder.

He batted .454/.489/.706 in 2000 with 45 runs and 38 RBI in 32 games, going 15-for-20 in steals. He made the leaderboards in RBI (tied Petr Pacas for 4th), hits (6th, 54), average (9th), doubles (tied Jan Chuboda for 5th, 14), runs (6th), triples (2, tied for 9th), extra-base hits (20, tied for 6th with Pacas and Navrátil), total bases (84, tied for 5th with Martin Veselý) and Offensive Wins Above Replacement (1.9, 7th, between Navrátil and Veselý). In the postseason, he hit .361/.425/.472 with 12 runs and 8 RBI in 9 games.

Pavel's last season as a regular was 2001. He put up a .382/.433/.488 batting line, scored 33 runs in 30 games, drove in 30 and was not caught in ten steal attempts. He was 4th with 47 hits (between Jirí Víšek and David Winkler), tied for 9th in doubles (10) and tied for 7th in swipes. He was even better in the postseason - .441/.486/.500, 12 R, 13 RBI, 6 SB in 7 G. He tied Přibyl for the most steals.

His last games for the national team came in the 2001 European Championship, when he was their oldest player at age 30. He hit only .208/.323/.250 but drove in 11 runs in 8 games and was 3-for-3 in steals while playing error-free defense. He led the Euros in RBI (2 ahead of Ruslan Deykun, Björn Johannessen and René Herlitzius), was second in sacrifice flies (2, one behind David Leander) and tied for 4th in steals (one behind former major leaguer Ralph Milliard and teammates Ovesný and Michal Müller).

Dropping to a part-time role in '02, he hit .239/.352/.370 though he posted a .294/.400/.294 line in the postseason. He moved to his third team in the city, MZLU Brno, in 2003 and batted .333/.417/.492 while failing to claim the pennant for the first time in over a decade. The veteran still placed 10th in slugging and 9th in OPS. In 2004, he hit .268/.344/.286 for MZLU but .552/.618/.690 in 8 postseason contests.

Chadim hit .354/.463/.415 in 2005 and .284/.333/.296 in 2006. He batted .339/.403/.339 in '07, finishing 9th in average. The veteran then hit .360/.429/.400 with 5 RBI in seven postseason contests. He did not play in 2008, but returned to hit .225/.340/.225 in 2009 (.333/.444/.400 in the postseason). He got into his final two games in 2011, back with Draci Brno by now, going 2 for 8 with two runs.

From 1995-2011, he had batted .362. As of July 2020, he was among the Extraliga career leaders (for stats available) in triples (17, tied for 14th with Petr Zýma and Michal Břeň) and steals (92, 16th, between Ota Kaňok and Jirí Víšek).

He managed the Czech entries in the 2010 Intercontinental Cup and 2012 U-21 European Championship. He coached the first team from the Czech Republic to make the Little League World Series, the Brno squad in the 2013 Little League World Series. They were also the first Czech team to win a game, beating the Michigan entry. In 2015, he became Vice President for Development of the Czech Baseball Association. He was named manager of the Czech team starting in 2021, ending a six-year run by Mike Griffin. No Czech native had managed the team since Chadim had done so in 2010 as American Andy Berglund and Canadian Griffin had followed him. His first tourney back at the helm was a success, as the Czechs finished second in the German pool of the 2023 World Baseball Classic Qualifiers to win a spot in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, their first World Baseball Classic trip.

Sources

• 1999 and 2002 Czech Baseball Association Reports
• Baseball-stat.cz
• International baseball scorekeeper Harry Wedemeijer
• European Baseball Federation
• The Oakland Press