Lutz Denckert

• Born January 31, 1971

Biographical Information

Lutz Denckert played in the Bundesliga and for the German national team.

He debuted with the 1995 Elmshorn Alligators, going 3-10 with a 6.54 ERA in 1995. He was 7th in the Bundesliga-1 north in K (57), led in losses, was 3rd in IP (84, behind Michael Wäller and Michael de Gelmini), tied for the most walks (70) and tied Niels Buschke for 4th in wild pitches (9). He was 7-6 with a save and a 4.40 ERA for the '96 Hamburg Knights, placing among the leaderboards in ERA (5th), strikeouts (62, 5th, between de Gelmini and David Amato), wins (tied for 4th with Hidalgo Lavidou and de Gelmini), innings (88, 2nd, 1/3 behind Wäller), walks (53, behind de Gelmini and Andreas Becker), hit batsmen (12, 3rd) and WHIP (1.64, 7th). In 1997, he was 7-2 with a 6.13 ERA for the Lokstedt Stealers. He tied Dirk Günther for 5th in wins, was 9th in K (39), was 9th in innings (47) and walked the 4th-most (46). He also hit .339/.422/.429.

Denckert fell to 3-4, 6.51 in 1998. He was 6th with 54 walks. He did not play in the Bundesliga-1 in 1999 but pitched 3 1/3 shutout innings for Germany in the 1999 European Championship. Returning to the Alligators for 2000, he batted .438/.472/.438 in limited time and was 7-5 with a 6.33 ERA. He was 8th in strikeouts (64), tied for 4th in wins (with Benjamin Kleiner, Wäller and Mirko Heid), tied for 7th in losses, was 5th in innings (69 2/3, between Stefan Fechtig and René Herlitzius), was 3rd with 51 walks (behind Kleiner and Thorsten Wöhner) and plunked the second-most (13).

In 2001, Germany switched from aluminum bats to wood and his batting line fell to .206/.304/.221 but he struggled on the mound despite the change (1-4, 8.34). The next year, he hit .200/.294/.217 and had a 1-9, 7.90 record. He was one loss behind leader Wöhner, tied Heid for 5th in IP (62 2/3) and was 3rd in walks (42). In his last Bundesliga-1 campaign, he was 0-10 with a 9.41 ERA as the ace of the 0-24 Alligators (who fell from the Bundesliga-1 to -2 as a result). He was still 3rd in strikeouts (41), led in losses (3 more than Markus Winkler), was 5th in IP (51 2/3, between Heid and Buschke), walked the most (58, 25 more than runner-up Winkler) and led in wild pitches (18) but was second in K/IP (behind only Frank Stattler).

Source: German baseball federation