Jan Chudoba

• Born May 20, 1981

Biographical Information

Jan Chudoba played in the Extraliga and for the Czech national team.

He debuted in 1999; the teenager was an impressive 4-for-5 and Draci Brno won the title, as they would do all six seasons of his career. In 2000, he became a starter and hit .404/.509/.640 with 31 runs and 32 RBI while fielding .879 in 28 games then was at .424/.457/.697 with 8 runs and 9 RBI in 8 postseason games. He tied for 9th in the regular season in RBI, tied Pavel Chadim for 5th in doubles (14), and tied Jiří Víšek for 3rd in walks (20); it would be his career year.

The infielder slipped to .378/.479/.490 with 35 runs in 27 games in '01 and scored 9 runs in 7 playoff games while hitting .273/.314/.364. He was 8th with 18 walks; while he was only 20 years old, he wouldn't make another leaderboard. In 2002, he hit .256/.336/.289 then .343/.378/.514 with 7 RBI in 8 postseason contests for the champs. In the 2002 World University Championship, he was 1 for 11 with two walks and a run, fielding .947 at second; he was named the Most Outstanding Defensive Player, beating out future NPB Gold Glove regular Takashi Toritani among others.

Chudoba posted a .273/.373/.313 batting line in the 2003 regular season and .231/.259/.269 in the playoffs. In the 2003 European Championship, he was 0 for 1 with a RBI. Draci Brno won Bronze in the 2004 European Cup, tying the best finish by a Czech team to that point. He had a good last season at .366/.416/.479 though he was 1 for 9 in the playoffs. In 139 regular season career games, he had batted .333/.422/.435 with 121 runs, 33 doubles, 105 RBI and 71 walks.

Sources

• Baseball-stat.cz
• Old IBAF site
• Wayback Archive, 2003 European Championship