Claus Seiser

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 11", Weight 174 lb.

• Born November 9, 1993

Biographical Information

Claus Seiser has played in the Austrian Baseball League and for the Austrian national team.

Seiser debuted in the ABL in 2009 at age 15, hitting .260/.302/.290 for the Diving Ducks Wiener Neustadt. In 2010, he attended the MLB European Academy. In the 2010 European Junior Championship Qualifiers, he hit .476/.593/.571 with five steals, nine runs and seven RBI in five games. He tied for the event lead in hits (10) and RBI and was 3rd in steals and 4th in average.

In 2011, he batted .231/.340/.282 for the Vienna Wanderers. He returned to the Diving Ducks in 2012 and was 12 for 35 as a bench player. In the 2012 European U21 Championship, he hit .250/.400/.250 with five runs in four games. He was at .244/.322/.282 for Wiener Neustadt in 2013. He was a starter for Austria in the 2013 B-Level European Championship; the teenager was only 1 for 15 with four walks, two runs and two RBI while fielding .882. His lone hit was off Denis Leonov. He tied Jan Jablonka for the event lead with 22 assists.

Seiser fell to .176/.315/.176 for the 2014 Diving Ducks but rebounded in 2015 to .310/.338/.432 with 19 runs in 20 games and 15 steals in 18 tries. He tied Joachim Frick for third in the league in swipes. In the 2015 B-Level European Championship, he was at .133/.316/.200 in the round-robin and 1 for 3 with a walk as Austria fell to Sweden in the finale. He tied for 2nd in the event with four double plays turned, one behind Simon Rosenbaum.

In 2016, he batted .277/.308/.386 for the Diving Ducks and scored 16 times in 20 contests. In the 2016 U-23 Baseball World Cup, he started at short for Austria and hit .120/.154/.120, fielding .848. The next year, he hit .296/.366/.417 with 22 runs in 26 games for Wiener Neustadt. He moved to the Vienna MetroStars in 2018 and batted .310/.412/.370 with 34 runs in 25 games. He tied for 5th in the ABL in runs. He won the Gold Glove at shortstop. In the 2018 European Championship Playoff, he split third with Samuel Hackl and went 1 for 4 with a walk, three runs and a RBI as Austria crushed Lithuania to win a spot in the 2019 European Championship.

Seiser fell to .186/.268/.257 in 2019. He still made Austria's squad for the 2019 European Championship. He backed up Samuel Hackl at catcher and Moritz Hackl at short. He started at catcher against Italy, retiring twice by Matteo Pizziconi before Dominik Loeffler pinch-hit. He had three putouts, an assist and an error. He started at short versus Spain, striking out against Jorge Balboa then reaching on an error facing Leslie Nacar. He had one putout, two assists and three errors. He tied Kruno Gojković, Will Savage, Moritz Scheicher and Nico Filice for the event lead in errors.

He hit .185/.313/.204 for the 2020 MetroStars.