Chaves getting
better with the bat

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By Al Chase
achase@starbulletin.com

Brandon Chaves spent last winter working out on the mainland trying to add a little more muscle to his 6-foot-3 frame in hopes of improving his offense.

After two seasons in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization, the Hilo High School and Hawaii-Hilo product had a .185 career batting average. That doesn't carry a professional baseball player very high up the minor-league ladder.

The Pirates assigned him to the Hickory (N.C.) Crawdads in the Class-A South Atlantic League for a second season coming out of spring training. Chaves responded with a .248 batting average and showed occasional power with 18 doubles, two triples and four home runs.

"I reported to spring training 15 pounds heavier than a year ago. The workouts definitely helped me out," Chaves said. "I also knew what to expect this year. I wasn't going in blind. I had some ups and downs, but overall, it's been a good year. It didn't seem like a long season compared to last year."

It helped that the Crawdads won the Northern Division's first-half title and captured the SAL championship by defeating Columbus 3-2 in the final game of the best-of-five showdown.

Chaves was the Crawdads' shortstop for 103 of the 105 games he played. If there was any disappointment, it was sitting out the final week of the regular season when he injured his right knee on a pickoff play at second base.

"I heard a pop but stayed in the game. The next morning I woke up at 8, which is unheard of, and couldn't even move the leg. I called our trainer right away," said the 10th round pick in the 2000 draft.

An MRI revealed no bad damage to the ligaments, just a sprained medial collateral ligament. He was activated for the playoffs and only saw spot duty, but will get his first championship ring.

The Pittsburgh organization recognized Chaves' improvement and want to build on that success.

"Brandon made progress with his offense because he had the opportunity to play consistently. We feel he can play defense and that was the deciding factor in letting him play full-time," said Brian Graham, Pittsburgh's director of player development.

"He is going to instructional league, where he will work on offense 90 percent of the time. What he needs is pro at-bats. Repetition vs. good competition makes a good player or gets him to a level where he can't compete anymore.

"With improved offense, he can move up to Double-A, Triple-A, maybe even the major leagues."