Thorsten Wöhner

• Bats Right, Throws Right

• Born March 8, 1971 in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony Germany

Biographical Information

Thorsten Wöhner pitched in Germany and for the German national team.

His first Bundesliga-1 season appears to have been 1997, when he was 3-4 with a 6.69 ERA for his hometown Wolfsburg Yahoos, while hitting .345/.486/.586 in the aluminum-bat league. He was 10th in the Bundesliga-1 south with 32 batters whiffed and tied for 7th in losses. He debuted for Germany in the 1997 European Championship, posting a save and a 1.69 ERA; only Ralph Wentz had a lower ERA for the squad. In 1998, he hit .429/.500/.571 and went 5-4 with a save and a 6.12 ERA. His 59 K (in 57 1/3 IP) were 8th, between Stefan Fechtig and René Herlitzius.

Wöhner fell to 3-6, 7.93 with a save, while hitting .217/.257/.275, in 1999. He was among the leaders in strikeouts (65, 6th, between Benjamin Kleiner and Michael Wäller), tied for 3rd in losses, was 7th in IP (64 2/3, between Dirk Fries and Herlitzius), walked the 3rd-most (49) and was 4th in K/IP (1.01). He rebounded in 2000, batting .239/.333/.577 and going 5-10 with a 7.06 ERA. He tied Octavio Medina for the triple lead (5), led with 81 batters whiffed (10 more than Frank Stattler, Kleiner and Fechtig), tied for 9th in wins, tied for the loss lead, was 3rd in IP (72 2/3, after Stattler and Kleiner), was second with 57 walks (11 behind Kleiner) and led with 15 hit batsmen.

In 2001, the league switched to wood bats and he posted a 5-8, 3.75 record while batting .290/.389/.484. He led the league in triples (5), was 5th in ERA (between Christian Klein and Claus-Jan Hendricks), was 3rd with 72 K, tied for the loss lead, was 4th in IP (72), tied for 3rd in walks (47), led in hit batsmen (22), was 4th in K/IP and was 8th in WHIP. He had a 5.14 ERA for Germany in the 2001 European Championship. The next summer, he produced at a .317/.427/.603 clip and was 8-10 with a 3.08 ERA. He made leaderboards in slugging (8th, between Alex Baham and Herlitzius), ERA (5th, between Eugen Heilmann and Mirko Heid), strikeouts (115, 1st, 51 more than #2 Hendricks!), wins (tied Fries for 4th), losses (1st), innings (108, 1st, 30 1/3 more than #2 Fries), walks (50, 2nd, 2 behind Hendricks), batters plunked (31, 1st by 18), K/IP (1.06, 1st, .01 ahead of Stattler) and WHIP (1.32, 5th, between Heid and Heilmann).

The right-hander moved to the Mannheim Tornados and had his best season in 2003 at 10-1, 1.62 with 78 K (and only 20 BB) in 72 IP. He also hit .245/.377/.408. He was second in ERA (.22 behind Martin Almstetter), 3rd in strikeouts, tied for the win lead, tied Nick Weisheipl for 2nd in saves (4), 4th in IP, 3rd in K/IP and first in WHIP (.86, .21 ahead of Almstetter). He won the MVP that season. He was 0-1 with a 13.50 ERA in the 2003 European Championship, losing to Croatia's Japanese import, Tetsuhiro Monna. It was his final stint with the national team.

Back with Mannheim in 2004, he faded to .167/.239/.214 and 3-5, 4.98, tying for 6th in losses. His final season in Germany's top league was with the 2005 Bennigsen Beavers, going 4-1 with a 3.57 ERA. In the regular season in Germany, he had gone 46-49 with 2 saves and a 4.77 ERA, striking out 583 but walking 348 in 587 IP. He had hit .268/.369/.454 with 123 runs in 178 games, often playing the outfield.

Primary Source: German Baseball Federation