Mark Gnutzmann

• Born May 20, 1975

Biographical Information

Mark Gnutzmann played in the Bundesliga and for the German national team.

He debuted with the 1995 Elmshorn Alligators, hitting .150/.268/.200. Moving to the Hamburg Knights the next year, he improved to .321/.447/.476. He tied Sven Huhnholz for the Bundesliga-1 north lead with 4 triples, tied for 7th in runs (30), was 8th in walks (17) and tied for 2nd in steals (18). With the 1997 HSV Stealers, he hit .282/.409/.366 and was 8th with 6 times plunked. In 1998, he scored 39 runs in 36 games for HSV and produced at a .342/.453/.450 clip but did not make any leaderboards. He drove in 33 runs in 28 games in 1999 and hit .326/.398/.457. He was 3rd in RBI and his 29 runs tied Glen Buckley for 8th. In the 1999 European Championship, he went 0 for 5 with one walk.

Gnutzmann fell to .274/.357/.342 in 2000 and HSV won the title. He moved to the Paderborn Untouchables and won the German championship with them as well; with the league switching to wood bats from aluminum, he adjusted just fine as he batted .283/.400/.377. He was a backup outfielder for the '02 Untouchables as they repeated, hitting only .171/.237/.229 (though he was 6 for 14 in the postseason). With the 2003 Untouchables, he hit .435/.473/.630 for the champs, driving in 20 runs in 19 games, splitting catching with Michael Franke while still being their most-used right fielder. He was 3rd in RBI, led in fielding (70 chances, no errors) and was 7th in slugging (.547, after his stats were adjusted with enough zero at-bats to make him a qualifier). In 2004, he batted .357/.448/.411 and won his fifth straight title. He was 9th in average. His final season, he was at .349/.408/.442 and Paderborn won yet again, and he hit .294 in the postseason.

In the regular season, he had hit .304/.401/.406 for his career.

Source: German baseball federation