Kestas Vilimas

• Bats Right, Throws Right

• School Vilniaus Technologijų Ir Dizaino Kolegija
• High School Vilniaus Versmės Katalikiškoji Gimnazija

• Born July 14, 1995

BR register page

Biographical Information

Kestas Vilimas was the first Lithuanian to play in the Hoofdklasse. He also has appeared in the Elitserien and in leagues in Belarus and Lithuania and for the Lithuanian national team. He is the twin brother of pitcher Robertas Vilimas.

Kestas was 1 for 5 for Lithuania in the 2011 European Junior Championship. Starting at catcher in the 2012 European Championship U21, he hit .188/.263/.313. Playing for Minsk in the 2016 CEB Cup, he batted .267/.421/.400 with six runs in five games. He tied Bastien Dagneau and Eric Herman for 5th in runs. He threw out two runners stealing, one behind event leader Andrija Tomić. In the 2016 European Championship U21, he batted .200/.250/.467 with six RBI in four games. He tied Anton Kuznetsov for 8th in slugging and tied his brother for the most RBI.

Vilimas hit .158/.304/.211 in the 2017 European Championship U23. He hit .154/.154/.615 with two home runs and four RBI in four games in the 2017 B-Level European Championship, with two homers, both off Slovakia's Marek Bošanský in a win. He had 32 chances with no errors. He was 4th in fielding percentage (between Nikita Monakhov and Denis Leonov) and tied for 5th in homers (one behind Martin Lukačka, Dominic Golubiewski, Leonov and Edvardas Matusevičius). Under the system used in recent years, Lithuania would have qualified for the European Championship. Under the system now in place, though, Lithuania was sent to the 2018 European Championship Playoff. He briefly made the US news as well, in a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article on pitchers trying to stay in shape during the off-season, as the work-out partner of the lone Lithuanian major leaguer, Dovydas Neverauskas; the article noted that he had helped Neverauskas in the off-season for years. It also mentioned he was involved in heavy weight training.

He signed with Sweden's Sölvesborg Firehawks for 2018. In the 2018 Federations Cup, he produced at a .400/.556/.700 clip with 11 RBI and 7 runs in 5 games in the round-robin. He tied Robin Roevens for 7th in OBP, tied for 9th in slugging, tied Sandel Cuevas and Héctor Acuña for 7th in runs, tied for 7th in hits (8, even with Ben Johnson, Acuña and Yves Poesmans), tied for 6th in total bases (14) and second in RBI (two behind former minor leaguer Blake Ochoa). In the title game, he was 1 for 2 with a walk and hit-by-pitch against the Astros Valencia' Yulman Ribeiro and Lowuin Sacramento but the Firehawks lost. In the '18 Elitserien, he hit .345/.468/.451 with 40 runs and 29 RBI. He fielded .991 but caught only 9.3% of those who tried to steal. He was second among catchers in fielding percentage (behind Mikael Lindqvist) but had the lowest caught-stealing rate of a qualifier. On offense, he made the leaderboards for average (9th), hits (39, 3rd), runs (tied for 1st), doubles (7, tied for 10th), OBP (8th, between Timor Kombarov and Joel Johnson), RBI (5th) and walks (4th). Also that year, he was two for six with two doubles and two runs in the 2018 European Championship Playoff as Lithuania was routed by Austria. He tied Joachim Frick for the most two-baggers.

Vilimas was back behind the dish for Lithuania for the 2019 B-Level European Championship. He hit .263/.417/.263 with five runs in five games, going four-for-six in steal attempts. He tied for fourth in the event in swipes. Lithuania won for a spot in the 2019 European Championship Playoff. In that playoff, he was 2 for 5 against Israel, doubling off Joey Wagman, but Lithuania again fell short of making their first European Championship. With the Firehawks that year, he batted .323/.447/.444 with 12 doubles, 10 steals in 11 tries, 24 runs and 26 RBI, while improving his caught stealing to 24%. He tied Leonard Bäckström for 9th in hits (32), led in doubles and tied tied for 5th in RBI for the title-winners

The 2020 Elitserien season was reduced in length by the COVID-19 pandemic, as leagues worldwide were. He hit .344/.363/.517 and was among the leaders for RBI (13, tied for 10th). Sölvesborg won the title again, with Vilimas driving in three in the finale. He then signed with the Silicon Storks in the Netherlands, becoming the first Lithuanian player in that circuit. He was 2 for 5 with a double and a run.

In 2021, he returned to Lithuania, playing for Kaunas County. He was 5 for 10 with a steal, two doubles, run and three RBI for Lithuania in the 2021 European Championship Qualifier. He was third on Lithuania in OPS, behind Arunas Dankovskis and Matusevičius.