Chad Hermansen was drafted tenth overall by the Pirates out of Nevada’s Green Valley High School back in 1995, setting a club record with a $1.15MM bonus. Hermansen started his pro career as a 17-year-old in the Gulf Coast League. For the next five years as he worked his way through the Pirates’ minor league affiliates, he was considered a top-50 prospect by Baseball America, peaking at #13 before the ’98 season.
Hermansen made his MLB debut with the 1999 Pirates as a September call-up. At the 2002 trade deadline, he was dealt to the Cubs, joining an interesting but bad roster.
After that season, Hermansen was traded with Todd Hundley to the Dodgers, bringing Mark Grudzielanek and Eric Karros to the Cubs. Hermansen got a final taste of the Majors in 2004 with the Blue Jays. Chad spent some additional time at Triple-A beyond that, playing in the Marlins and Mets organizations.
In the end, Hermansen tallied 541 plate appearances in the Majors from 1999-2004. He popped 13 home runs in that span, including shots off Zambrano and Al Leiter.
After his playing career, Chad spent eight years scouting for the Angels. He’s now focused on being a life coach for former athletes. You can check out Chad’s website here and follow him on Twitter here. He also has a podcast and YouTube Channel called Mental Edge Training Coach where he interviews current and former players, coaches, scouts, and parents on their baseball story and the mental game.
Chad held a very informative and interesting chat with MLBTR readers today, talking about dealing with high expectations, the mental side of baseball, how scouting has changed, getting traded twice in one year, how he spent his signing bonus, and much more. Read the transcript here!
Eyes!! He’s got no eyes!!
Who????? Oh the guy. Who got traded to improve the team. Gotcha!!!
Tim, how do you track all these different guys down for these chats?
There’s a player form where guys can volunteer to host a chat
That’s cool. I was unaware they had this. Thanks, Sherlock.
I did this post a few weeks ago, and we got about 30 responses and counting. And each new chat often brings in one or two more.,
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2023/01/are-you-a-current-or-former-mlb-player.html
Thanks for the link. I do recall that now, Tim. As embarrassing as it is, I forgot!
Ugh, Man, when I get into my forties it’ll be bad….
I’m sure, Dustin Ackley was available. How about the best GM ever Jack Zduriencik?
Sounds like Lloyd McClendon really messed with his swing. Interesting.
Yeah, that was super interesting how open he was about how much a hitting coach can make or break a player.
You’d think Lloyd would wait to see if he “couldn’t hit like that up here” before messing up his swing. Coaches don’t always know what they’re doing…..
I do not doubt that Lloyd taught others how he hit and was fairly successful hitting himself.
Ray Searage was a very good pitching coach with older pitchers to be reclaimed but not so good with a one way philosophy with younger pitchers.
It seems to me that coaches should not fiddle with what works with good players,especially very young ones,unless there is some kind of obvious shortcoming that will eventually have to be overcome.
Charlie Lau,who was an undistinguished hitter in his somewhat short ML career,was known as a fine hitting coach.Perhaps he was more flexible with his charges,and,like Hermanson said,would wait until someone showed that he needed improvement in a certain area.It is not easy to change ingrained habits,especially if they have worked well in the past,and it can play with a young guy’s mind like it did for Chad.
I think that that is what happened with Kingery with the Phillies.
The part about the 2002 Cubs roster was interesting. Was a whos who of 1990’s early 2000 players. Even the Super Bowl QB’s daddy was on the 2002 Cubs. Piss on his hands Alou too. Six finger Alfonseca. Terrible record for a somewhat star studded roster. They won the division the next year. Dusty Baker took over. Probably never got the credit he deserved until he went to Houston.
Dexter Fowler would be a good guy to try to get to do a chat now that he has retired and will be involved with the broadcast side ( Cubs Marquee Network) this upcoming season.
Lloyd McClendon—bum manager, bum player, and bum coach!
I remember Hermansen on my Playstation baseball game.. so that’s pretty cool