Andrija Tomić

Andrija Tomić

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 6' 1", Weight 192 lb.

• Born February 12, 1996

Biographical Information

Andrija Tomić has played in Croatia and Germany and for the Croatian national team.

He attended the MLB European Elite Camp in 2014. That year, the teenager made the Croatian national team for the 2014 European Championship and started the opener, striking out against Kevin Heijstek in his first at-bat. He got his first hit off the Czech national team's Marek Červenka and hit a 3-run homer off Russia's Denis Leonov. He finished the event at .190/.227/.333.

Tomić starred for Croatia in the 2015 B-Level European Championship to help them maintain their spot in the European Championship A pool. He hit .381/.435/.381 with four runs and five RBI in the qualifier with 3-hit games against Switzerland and Ukraine. He had two hits and two RBI against Marek Bošanský to pace their offense in a 6-4 win over Slovakia in the championship game and was named tournament MVP. While he had been a catcher his first two tournaments for Croatia, he moved to left field in the 2016 European Championship with American Philip Smith doing the catching. He hit .348/.400/.522 with 14 putouts, one assist and no errors and scored 7 runs in 6 games to pace Croatia, one run ahead of Kruno Gojković. He had 3 hits against Belgium and scored four times against Greece. He tied Shawn Larry and former major leaguer Alex Liddi for the tournament lead in triples (2).

In the 2017 European Interleague, he batted .375/.485/.675 with 36 runs, 21 RBI and 14 steals (in 15 tries) in 19 games for Split Nada, finishing 3rd in slugging (behind Slobodan Gales and Gojković), 3rd in OBP, 1st in runs (4 ahead of Gojković), 1st in doubles (9) and tied for 1st with 54 total bases. From 2009-2019, he was among the Interleague's career leaders in most categories: 2nd in average (.439, 2nd, 56 points behind Gales), OBP (.526, 4th, between Ivan Račić and Tomáš Biskorovajny), slugging (.685, 4th between the same two guys), runs (118, 3rd), hits (107, 5th), doubles (35, 3rd), triples (5, tied for 6th), total bases (167, tied for 6th), times hit by pitch (15, tied for 8th), steals (41, 7th), steal percentage (.911, 4th), runs per game (2.03, 1st, .31 ahead of Gales), hits per game (1.84, 1st, .10 ahead of Gales), doubles per game (.60, 1st), triples per game (.09, 4th), total bases per game (2.88, 3rd) and steals per game (.71, 1st, .01 ahead of Gales). Andrija had 5 hits and 3 runs in a 2017 CEB Cup loss to Minsk and another 3 runs in a loss to the Ukrainian entry. He hit .333/.545/.533 with 5 walks and 8 runs in 4 games. He was 3rd in runs and tied for 2nd in walks.

He signed with Germany's Saarlouis Hornets for 2018. He batted .339/.398/.411 with 21 runs and 10 steals (in 13 tries) in 28 games and threw out 31% of those who tried to steal. He was 11th in the Bundesliga-1 South in average (most of the players ahead of him had played in the US minors), tied Alex Schmidt for 3rd in hits (38), tied for 5th in doubles (8), tied for 2nd in hit-by-pitch (6, 6 behind Matt Vance), tied Shane Salley for 2nd in steals (one behind Nateshon Thomas) and led in base-stealers thrown out (though not in percentage).

Moving to the Stuttgart Reds the next year, he hit .271/.288/.372 and was 10-for-12 in steals; he was not the only Croatian on the team, which also had Antonio Horvatić. He fielded .993. In the 2019 European Championship, he batted .238/.273/.476 with five RBI in the first six games, including nearly hitting for a cycle in a 3-run, 3-RBI game against Sweden (going deep off Jesper Svedhem) and driving in a run in a near-upset of Italy (2-1). He tied Gales for the team lead in RBI and had 46 error-free chances, usually catching with Smith at 1B. The 7th game for Croatia did not make it into the statistics report; he was 0 for 3 with a walk and a run against Britain, with one error in 10 chances.