Chad Gaudin

Chad Edward Gaudin is a professional baseball pitcher who plays for the Chicago Cubs. Gaudin was a student at the Crescent City High School where he played baseball. He earned the All-State and district MVP title during his Junior and Senior years. That led to a 34th round pick, 1009 overall, by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in the 2001 MLB Draft. It took him up to a year to get a place to play and when he did, he began in the A-league with a 2.26 ERA record, 10th in the minor leagues.

In 2003, he got his first start since being called up by the A-California League to join the AA-Orlando Rays. He had a perfect game for 7-innings in a game for the AA-Orlando Rays. He retired all 21 batters he faced that game. He would make two more starts for the Orlando Rays and had an ERA of 0.47 before he was called up by the Major League team to be a part of the team roster.

Gaudin was the youngest player, in the history of the Devil Rays, to make his debut for the Franchise. At just 20 years and 4 months, he was also the 4th youngest player, all time, in MLB history. Gaudin got 15 appearances in the Devil Rays uniform and made the most of it with a 2-0 record and a 3.60 ERA. In 2004, he spent a bit of time in the AAA league with Durham, whilst raking up a 1-2 record and a 4.85 ERA in 26 appearances for the Devil Rays.
His time with the Devil Rays was up and in December of 2004, Gaudin was traded out to the Toronto Blue Jays in exchange for back-up catcher Kevin Cash. His start with the Blue Jays was quite ordinary as he began the AAA-Syracuse league with a 1-3 record and a 13.15 ERA in 5 games. Within a year, he was traded out to the Oakland Athletics for Dustin Majewski.

Gaudin played in the AAA-league with the Sacramento River Cats and after a 0.37 ERA in 4 starts, he was pulled up by the Major League team as a relief pitcher for the remaining part of the season. With the Athletics, in 2007, Gaudin became the starting pitcher again after Esteban Loaiza went out injured. He fit the role like a glove, and soon became part of the big-three along with Dan Harren and Joe Blanton.

In 2008, The Athletics moved him back into the bullpen before finally trading him out to the Chicago Cubs in exchange for Sean Gallagher, Matt Murton, Eric Patterson and Josh Donaldson.