František Kučera

• Born 1972

Biographical Information

František Kučera had a long career in the Extraliga and played for the Czech national team.

The earliest available Czech stats are 1993-1994 and only homers are listed for those years. Both seasons, he hit four long balls for the Tempo Titans Prague. He hit .279/.424/.529 in 1995, finishing among the league leaders in RBI (tied for 6th, 22), steals (16, 3rd, 4 behind Pavel Chadim and Tomáš Ovesný), walks (13, tied for 8th) and hit-by-pitch (4, tied for 9th). In 1996, he fell to .234/.344/.377 but he rebounded to .391/.444/.591 in 1997 with 36 RBI in 115 AB. He was 4th in RBI (between Roman Talda and Miroslav Víšek), tied for third in hits (with Ivo Kučera at 45; it is unclear if this is a relative), tied for 5th in runs (35) and tied Aleš Navrátil for 8th in total bases (68).

He was on the Czech team in the 1997 European Championship. He was at .323/.458/.417 for the 1998 Titans, tying for 8th in steals (11) and led in walks (23, one ahead of Rob Castaneda). He did not play in the 1999 Extraliga (perhaps he played in a neighboring country or was injured? He did go 8 for 19 with 3 doubles in the playoffs) and returned in 2000 to bat .358/.500/.509. He tied for 7th with six times hit by pitch. He was 8 for 18 with a double and a homer in the postseason. In 2001, he slumped to .237/.333/.387 but with 22 runs in 26 games, then was 4 for 16 with 5 walks in the playoffs. His 2002 batting line was .259/.423/.333 and he had 20 walks in 26 games, then he hit .147/.237/.206 in the postseason with 34 K in 111 AB. He tied for 6th in walks in the regular season.

In 2003, he batted .206/.388/.238 with 17 walks in 22 games then was 1 for 17 with a walk in a rough playoff stretch. The next year, he eked out a .153/.294/.188 line and hit .240/.345/.280 in his last time in the playoffs. For 2005, he hit .215/.394/.252 with 30 walks and 21 runs in 34 games. The infielder tied Lukáš Macek and former Expos farmhand Pavel Budský for the league lead in walks, his last time on the leaderboards. In 2006, he hit .219/.318/.247 then .209/.329/.239 in 2007, .218/.311/.244 in 2008 and .220/.366/.297 in 2009 to end his career. He hit .254 with a .382 OBP for the seasons 1995-2009 when full stats are available. His 204 walks were 17th in the post-1994 period (as of 2022).