The HSV Stealers announced on Friday afternoon further reinforcements of the roster for the upcoming Baseball-Bundesliga season. The two big names are Patrick Maat and Joakim Claesson. Additionally Philipp von Soosten, Arash Etemadi and the Venezuelan cousin of Hamburg’s soccer star Tomas Rincon, Franco Molina, will also play for the team of new head coach Jens Hawlitzky this year.
Maat is a 22-year-old Australian catcher, who played Rookie ball in the New York Mets organization in 2007 and 2008. He had a .179 (OBP .324/SLG .232) in 25 games in his professional career. This winter he played for New South Wales in his home country and batted .390 (OBP .446/SLG .573) in the Claxton Shield tournament.
Claesson is a 26-year-old right-hander from Sweden, who will pitch for the Stealers in the first four games of the season before returning to Stockholm in May to play in the Elitserien. He had an 8-3 record with an ERA of 2.33 in eleven starts last year. He struck out 94 batters in 89 innings, while walking 38. He won the championship with Stockholm in the past two seasons and was part of the Swedish national team during the Baseball World Cup. The Stealers are still looking for a foreign pitcher to replace Claesson in May.
Earlier this winter the HSV already had added infielder Sergej Yatsenka (Bremen Dockers) and French national team outfielder Jerome Rousseau (Savigny Lions) to the roster. Last year’s head coach Shawn Pynn had resigned in December and is now the skipper of the Italian club Verona Knights. Hamburg opens the new season today in Dortmund.