Joshua Crouse

Joshua Mark Crouse

• Bats Right, Throws Right

• Born December 8, 1985

Biographical Information

Joshua Crouse has played in the Bundesliga and for the Swiss national team.

He moved to Switzerland when he was 15 years old. He hit .429/.556/.571 with 4 runs and 3 steals in 4 games for the Zurich Barracudas in the 2016 CEB Cup. He was 8th in slugging, 9th in OBP (between Hrvoje Tadić and Kostiantyn Chukhas), tied for 3rd in steals and tied for first with 16 assists. By 2021, he was playing for the Ulm Falcons in Germany, going 7-for-27 with 4 walks, a double and a homer in limited action.

With Switzerland in the 2021 European Championship Qualifier, the 35-year-old had a four-run game against Slovenia and finished 6-for-8 with 5 walks, 7 runs and 4 RBI in three games as the Swiss shortstop. He led all the qualifiers in average (.023 ahead of Tom Roulis) and OBP (.143 ahead of Roulis) and tied for 3rd in walks while placing 5th in slugging.

For the Falcons in '22, he batted .348/.454/.438 with 12 steals in 12 tries and 24 runs in 24 games. He tied Philip Schulz for 5th in the Bundesliga-1 South in swipes, was 4th in assists but tied for second in errors (behind Billy Germaine). In the 2022 European Championship Qualifier, he hit .438/.550/.625 with 3 doubles and 8 RBI in 4 games, though he fielded .778. He drove in four in their 10-9 win over Finland. He tied for 6th in the qualifiers in doubles, tied for 7th in RBI and tied for 5th in errors. Switzerland won a spot in the 2023 European Championship, their first European Championship.

Crouse played for the Wil Pirates back in Switzerland in 2023. In the 2023 Euros, he was the first batter ever for a Swiss team in a European Championship when he hit leadoff and played DH in their opener against Israel. He drew a walk from Itai Spinoza his first time up. In the third, he singled off Spinoza, advanced on a double by Noah Williamson and scored on a grounder by Hayden Jung-Goldberg for Switzerland's first run in a European Championship. It was their only run of the day, though. He finished the event at .105/.261/.105 with 3 runs in 5 games, handling seven putouts as a right fielder-second baseman. He tied Hayden Jung-Goldberg and Max Jung-Goldberg for the team lead with two times being hit by a pitch.