Wu-Hsiung Pan

From BR Bullpen

Pan batting in 2012.

Wu-Hsiung Pan (潘武雄) (Take)

  • Bats Left, Throws Left
  • Height 5' 10", Weight 180 lb.

BR register page

Biographical Information[edit]

Wu-Hsiung Pan won two batting titles and a Taiwan Series MVP in his 17-year CPBL career.

Pan played in the 1996 World Youth Championship, when Taiwan finished third. He was 0 for 5 for Taiwan in the 2000 Haarlem Baseball Week. Pan was drafted by the President Lions in the second round of the 2005 CPBL Draft but he only got into 14 games for them in 2006, hitting .200/.300/.343. Becoming a regular outfielder for the Lions, Pan did very well in the 2007 CPBL, batting .319/.403/.431. He was 7th in the CPBL in batting average (.063 behind Chin-Feng Chen), 8th in hits (47 behind Kuo-Ching Kao) and 8th in runs (28 behind Tilson Brito). He did not make an error in 90 games in the outfield. He won Rookie of the Year honors, made the Best Ten and also captured a CPBL Gold Glove. He was selected into the 2007 CPBL All-Star Game, and he had a 2-for-5 record with a 2-run homer against Yung-Chieh Yeh. Pan helped the Lions win the 2007 Taiwan Series, hitting .382/.417/.588 with 2 homers (all in Game 2). In the 2007 Asian Championship, he was 1 for 4 with two walks and a sacrifice fly as the backup LF to Chien-Ming Chang.

Pan is proving 2007 was no fluke. Through 57 games, he is hitting .347/.450/.603 and was added to Taiwan's roster for the 2008 Olympics. Pan struggled in Beijing, going 0 for 19 with a walk and 2 runs while splitting DH duties with Chin-Feng Chen and seeing some action in the outfield. He ended up hitting .346/.457/.605 with 13 homers in 2008, and he was 3rd in batting (.045 behind Cheng-Min Peng). He won the Best Ten again. In the 2008 Taiwan Series, Pan was 7-for-25 and the Lions beat the Brother Elephants in 7 games. He broke the CPBL record with a 6-game homer streak.

In the 2009 World Baseball Classic, Pan was one of Taiwan's top hitters, going 2 for 4 with two walks for the team's best OPS by anyone with more than one at-bat. He tied Jason Bay, Frederich Cepeda, Iván Rodríguez and Trent Oeltjen for 4th in the event in average, trailing only Brett Roneberg, Luis Durango and Joey Votto. He hit .367/.429/.565 with 34 doubles and 66 RBI in 97 games in the 2009 CPBL, going 11-for-14 in steal attempts. He made the Best Ten again, joining Chien-Ming Chang and Ssu-Chi Chou in the outfield. He edged Cheng-Min Peng for the batting title (by .001), was second in slugging (.068 behind Chih-Sheng Lin), was 2nd in doubles (3 behind Wilton Veras), tied for 10th in steals, was 2nd in OBP (.039 behind Peng) and was 3rd in OPS (behind Peng and Chih-Sheng Lin). The Lions went on to win the 2009 Taiwan Series, and Pan hit .280/.472/.400 to win the Outstanding Player award, a step behind MVP Luther Hackman.

Pan missed most of 2010 with injury, hitting .267/.383/.317 in 30 games. In 2011, he was back in form at .335/.436/.510. Had he qualified, he would have been 3rd in the league in average and 2nd to Chin-Feng Chen in OBP. Pan won another title as he hit .316/.435/.526 with a homer and helped the Lions beat the Monkeys in 5 games. In 2012, he hit .388/.504/.596 with 28 doubles and 68 walks in 94 games. He won his second batting title (.017 over Yi-Chuan Lin), led in OBP (.046 over Chou), tied Peng for 5th in doubles, led in slugging (.009 over Chou), obviously led in OPS, tied for 5th with 5 triples and was 3rd in walks (behind Chou and Peng). He also attended the 2012 CPBL All-Star Game, and he was 1-for-4 with a double. Despite that, he did not make the Best Ten as Chou was joined in the outfield by Chen-Yu Chung and Cheng-Wei Chang. He hit .375/.500/.375 in the 2012 Taiwan Series, but the Lions lost to the Lamigo Monkeys in 5 games.

His numbers fell to .300/.383/.383 in 2013 and .267/.365/.416 in 2014, though the 33-year-old still stole 10 bases in 11 tries the latter year. In the 2015 CPBL, he was at .300/.372/.537 with 12 homers in 57 games, his first double-digit homer tally since 2008. Pan produced at a .346/.427/.564 clip in 2016 and set a new career high with 18 HR. He still stole 10 bases in 12 attempts, scoring 71 runs in 96 games. He made the leaderboards in average (6th, between Yi-Chuan Lin and Che-Hsuan Lin), OBP (5th, between Che-Hsuan Lin and Chou), slugging (8th, between Chun-Hsiu Chen and Chou), OPS (6th, between Che-Hsuan Lin and Kuo-Hui Kao), homers (10th) and steals (tied Chin-lung Hu for 10th).

In 2017, Pan reached 100 career homers against Bryan Woodall, the 18th player in CPBL annals to that figure. He swatted 19 home runs that season, batting .305/.406/.559 with 65 RBI in 76 games. He tied Tzu-Hao Chen for 5th in dingers. He batted .290/.357/.475 in 2018 and was the 24th player to reach 1,000 career hits. He was 2-for-20 in the 2018 Taiwan Series, and the Lions lost to the Monkeys. In 2019, he hit .321/.395/.467. The 39-year-old fell to .215/.315/.458 in 2020. In the 2020 Taiwan Series, he hit the first extra-inning pinch-hit home run in Taiwan Series history, with a game-winning three-run shot off Kai-Wen Cheng in the 10th. He drove in 3 in Game 6 and then was named Taiwan Series MVP after they took Game 7 as well. The veteran hit .271/.330/.318 in 2021, but he fell to .146/.241/.250 in 2022. On April 14, Pan crushed his 7th career pinch-hit homer, to tie the CPBL record with Wei-Ta Su and Chih-Sheng Lin. (Lin and Su both added one in 2023). Pan announced his retirement after the 2022 season, and he became a coach.

Overall, Pan hit .317/.409/.494 with 1,207 hits, 129 homers and 84 steals in 17 seasons in the CPBL. As of 2023, he was 10th in batting (between Cheng-Wei Chang and Wei-Chen Wang), 15th in hits (between Chao-Hang Cheng and Yung-Chi Chen), 12th in doubles (between Chuan-Chia Wang and Yen-Wen Kuo) and 14th in homers (between Chin-Feng Chen and Chia-Hsien Hsieh).

Sources[edit]

Retrieved from "https://www.baseball-reference.com/bpv/index.php?title=Wu-Hsiung_Pan&oldid=1343800"