As Michael Clair of MLB.com reports, former MLB pitcher Asher Wojciechowski has been named pitching coach for Croatia’s national baseball team.
When he was nine years old, his family moved to Romania. He played both soccer and baseball when Little League Baseball expanded to Bucharest. His team would play in a similar tournament to the Little League World Series in Poland. He would move to Sturgis, Michigan, just three years later.
Wojciechowski, 36, was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays in the first round of the 2010 MLB Draft out of The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina. He made his MLB debut in 2015 with the Houston Astros and pitched in the Cincinnati Reds, Baltimore Orioles, and New York Yankees organizations until 2021. He had signed a minor league contract with the Seattle Mariners in 2022 but would only make nine appearances and five starts with their Triple-A affiliate. He would retire at the end of the season.
Since the end of his playing career, he has remained busy. Wojciechowski will begin coaching in Egypt with Because Baseball, an organization devoted to baseball diplomacy. Croatia finished in tenth place at the 2023 European Championships.
It will be intriguing to see the addition of Asher Wojciechowski as the team’s pitching coach, adding a player with previous MLB playing experience.
In his MLB career, he owns a career 9-15 record in 58 appearances and 35 starts, tossing in 202 innings, striking out 195 batters with a career 5.93 ERA.
