Heidenheim Heidekoepfe
The Heidekoepfe won the German Baseball championship for the first time last summer, defeating the Wanderers, the Alligators and the Tornados along the way after finishing the regular season in second place.
General manager Klaus Eckle was not only able to maintain the team, but even made it stronger. The only significant loss is the retirement of Ryan Lilly. However he got replaced by Chris Beck (Solingen), who tortured opposing pitching in the northern division the past two seasons. Martin Almstetter (Regensburg) and Martin Dewald (Mannheim, will arrive after the end of the college season), both national team pitchers, will reinforce the bullpen. Infielder and pitcher Brandon Taylor will further strengthen the team during the European Cup in Brno and a few Bundesliga games.
Additionally the main core with head coach Mike Hartley, MVP Simon Guehring, starting pitchers Dusty Bergman and Markus Winkler plus outfielders Ray Stokes and Robert Gruber will also come back as well as infielder Andy Janzen, who will join the team in May after the end of the college season. Heidenheim’s goals for the season not only include a return to the finals, but also to defend the A-Pool ticket for Germany in the European Cup. They definitely have the team to do it and are considered as the favorite at the start of the season.
Mannheim Tornados
Record champion Tornados lost in the German finals for a second straight year after beating Paderborn and Regensburg in the first two rounds of the playoffs. During the winter they had to overcome some financial problems and some key departures, but head coach Georg Bull still will have a competitive team on the field. Billy Hess, Chris Falls (Italy), Justin Lazarus, Martin Dewald (Heidenheim), Fred Kraft, Philip Cass (Saarlouis) and Mike Otto have left Mannheim during the winter.
The Tornados signed two Texan players to compensate for the losses. Shortstop Dennis Kelly is well-known around Europe after stints with the Karlskoga Bats and the Montpellier Barracudas. He will be joined by fellow Austin College graduate Cory Stevens, who will take over at third and as starting pitcher in game two each week. He will be joined in the rotation by Rene Franke, who had a great year in 2009. Marvin Appiah, Sascha Lutz, Jens Heymer and Dominik Hoepfner are supposed to get the offense going alongside Kelly and Stevens. Even though they lost important players, the Tornados still will be one of the best teams in the league with another possible finals appearance in sight.
Buchbinder Legionaere Regensburg
The Buchbinder Legionaere looked like the team to beat during the first few months of the 2009 season. But after starting with 16 straight wins and taking the number one seed with a 21-3 record going into the playoffs, Regensburg didn’t play well in the postseason and was eliminated in the semi-finals.
Management was pretty busy during the winter, overhauling the roster quite a bit. Eight players left the club, including Eddie Aucoin (Konica Minolta Pioniers), Martin Almstetter (Heidenheim), Alex Lauterbach, Michael Weigl (3rd team), Markus Gienger (retired) and Oskar von Mosch (Golf career). Pitchers Rene Herlitzius, Boris Bokaj (Arrows Ostrava) and Chris Paterson (Montigny Cougars) plus catcher Petr Cech (Arrows/GCL Reds) were added to the roster.
The rest of the open roster spots are going to players from within the organization. Bokaj, Paterson and Philipp Hoffschild will form the rotation with Herlitzius, Benedikt Antwi, Jonathan Eisenhuth and Rodney Gessmann being in the bullpen. Offensive wise they still will be one of the best teams, having Matt Vance, Ludwig Glaser, the Howard brothers and Cedric Bassel aboard. Klaus Hopfensperger will miss the first few weeks of the season with strained knee ligaments. Regensburg is going to score enough runs to win another championship, but the pitching staff will decide, if another trophy will enter the clubhouse.
Mainz Athletics
The Athletics barely made the playoffs in 2009, where they got swept by the Alligators. And it is not going to be much easier this time around. Big acquisitions weren’t made during the winter. Japanese shortstop and pitcher Daisuke Ikenaga returns after having played in Mainz in 2006. Furthermore Julius Spann and Christian Decher got promoted from the second team, which is the foundation of the team of head coach Cae Santos, as twelve of the 17 players are homegrown.
While key players like Mike Larson, Manuel Moeller, Shu Sasaki and Max Boldt return for another year in Mainz, Raef Hobbs Brown (Saarlouis) and Nils Hartkopf (Solingen) are gone. Moeller, probably Ikenaga, Boldt, Jan-Niclas Stoecklin and Daniel Klein will likely shoulder the bulk of the work on the mound. The A’s are a young team, which looks a lot like last year’s edition. But this is no guarantee that they will return to the postseason, as clubs like Saarlouis, Haar and Gauting were more active during the winter.
Haar Disciples
The Disciples nearly made it into the playoffs last summer, finishing in fifth place in the final standings. Going into their 20th year in team history the club from the suburbs in Munich wants to make the jump this time around. And they are definitely again in the mix for a spot in the top four. Head coach Chris Dresel didn’t suffer any major departures, although the return of shortstop Tavo Hall is uncertain due to his studies.
Haar has added five new players with Calvin Brutus (Florida State), Simon Mantz (Groebenzell), Gregor Piehler (Ingolstadt), Zach Kim (University of San Francisco) and Dominic Maric. Brutus and Mantz are supposed to bolster a pitching staff, which also consists of Gregor Klinc, Ted Gieschen, Dirk Fries and Philipp Dresel. Kim joins Ty Eriksen and Michael Stephan as leaders in the offense department.
Saarlouis Hornets
Similar to the Tornados, the Hornets also ran into some financial troubles in the offseason, which puts the 2011 season in danger. However the sixth-ranked team from last year is in secure waters for 2010. Head coach Leo Vivona will miss Kenny Camp, Whitney Pierce (Schwaz Tigers) and Patrick Carlson (Neuenburg) on the roster, but also was able to get strong replacements. Czech national team catcher Jakub Vojak (Skokani Olomouc), former Cincinnati Reds farmhand Tom Fiebig, Raef Hobbs-Brown (Mainz) and Trey Hendricks (Gauting) are the key additions. The Australian Fiebig is going to form the starting rotation with Ales Keprta. Hendricks will not be available for the whole season, but will reinforce the offense besides Vojak and Hobbs-Brown. Similar to last season Saarlouis is going to battle with Mainz, Haar and Gauting for probably only one open playoff spot behind the big three in the southern division.
Gauting Indians
The Indians were heavily improved last year under the leadership of player coach Trey Hendricks and with starting pitcher Chris Clem on the mound. Reinforced with a few other Bundesliga players the club even was able to win the international tournament Open de Rouen in France. However Gauting missed the playoffs anyway and had to settle for seventh after unimpressive playdowns. Hendricks (Saarlouis), Clem, Brad Dutton, Paul Waterman and Will Lintern left the club during the winter. Matti Emery and Johannes Jung on the other hand extended their contracts. Additionally the Indians signed John Dobkowski (Midwest Sliders), Jakub Janda (RCH Rookie team) and Thomas Rohrer. However they are not done. Since they haven’t filled any foreign spots on the roster yet, Gauting will bring in more players until the season starts. As we are only having a hunch, who it might be, it is too early to tell, if the Indians again will have a shot at the playoffs.
Neuenburg Atomics
The Atomics return to the Baseball-Bundesliga after one year hiatus in the second division. Head coach Rob Piscatelli can rely on the complete roster of last year’s campaign plus four new players. Especially the pitching staff got armed with Tony Ronco (Southern Wesleyan), Patrick Carlson (Saarlouis), Andrea Girasole (Bern Cardinals) and Keenan Pipes (returns from College). Ronco, Carlson and Alex Aucoin, who is playing in Neuenburg since 2008, will form the starting rotation. Girasole moves into the bullpen together with Pipes and Janos Daroczi. On the offensive front only Aucoin stood out last year, so the new players are also needed to produce at the plate, if the Atomics want to avoid relegation at the end of the year.
Team by Team Previews Northern Division
Photo: © Gregor Eisenhuth www.eisenhuth-photographie.de