EXL: Ostrava announced new players
The second team of 2020 Extraliga season, Arrows Ostrava, was the only team which haven’t announced any foreign players. This changed on Thursday, with three players being announced.
Arrows fans might remember the first one, as Artur Strzalka already played a game for them. A year later he signed contract with New York Yankees and became the first baseballer born and raised in Poland to sign a contract with MLB organization. However, he only played two seasons with Yankees, with 21 games at Rookie level and ERA 5.28. In 2016 he was a part of European team which played winter tournament in Taiwan. There he caught interest of Kagawa Olive Guyners that plays lower league and so the Pole moved to Japan. He didn’t remaind there long and Strzalka soon retruned to KS Silesia Rybnik, which he helped to get Polish title. He also played in Germany, Italy and Latvia.
Second player is a New York bron Brett Holz. The young player comes as a first baseman, the position occupied by Tomáš Juněc in the previous years. Juněc hasn’t played for Arrows this year due to family and work-related reasons and his team had to find a replacement. Holz played at university in Columbia where he played 19 games with BA .091.
The last player is South African Tyler Smith. In 2018 he was part of South African national team that won against Czech Republic at World Championship 2018 in Mexico. Smith had 3 hits from 5 AB in the game. In 2019 he was part of wider roster for South African olympic qualification team, but he didn’t get to play at the tournament. In 2020 Smith played in USA where he played for Grand View College.
