Randy Daal

Randy Daal

• Bats Right, Throws Right

• Born June 25, 1984 in Amsterdam, Noord-Holland Netherlands

Randy Daal has played in the Hoofdklasse for a number of years. His father Ritchie Daal coached in the league and his brothers Ricky Daal and Rodney Daal and cousins Emeron Lourens and Témesh Lourens have all played in the Hoofdklasse; in 2010, Rodney became the first of the Daal clan to sign with a MLB clan.

Playing for Kinheim in 2003, Daal hit three triples, tied for fifth in the Hoofdklasse. He scored 27 runs with the same club in 2004, tying Jeffrey Cranston, Johnny Balentina and Norbert Lokhorst for 7th in the circuit. Daal hit .208/.292/.236 in 2005 and fielded .937, in the middle of the pack among the league's seven most-used second basemen.

Randy moved to Almere in 2006 and batted .310/.385/.406, while fielding .922 at second. He was 16th in the league in average, tied former major leaguer Ivanon Coffie for 14th in slugging, tied for fifth in steals (9), was 4th in doubles (12, trailing Yuji Nerei, Fausto Alvarez and Tjerk Smeets), tied Danny Rombley and Roel Koolen for 8th in total bases (63) and tied Koolen and Ronald Jaarsma for 10th in hits (48). He had the worst fielding percentage of any of the league's regular second sackers.

Daal fell to .245/.323/.345 in 2007 and fielded only .895 at second. His 8 steals did tie Michael Duursma and Benjamin Dille for 8th in the league and his three home runs tied for fifth - most of the players he tied with had US pro experience (Jourick Blanco, Ryan Murphy, Harvey Monte, Vince Rooi) or Dutch national team experience (Bryan Engelhardt, Monte, Rooi, Sidney de Jong). Jeffrey Verbij was the only player he tied with who did not fall into either category. He was easily last in fielding at second base, .040 behind Björn Henrichs.

In 2008, Randy moved to HCAW and rebounded to hit .289/.369/.403 while fielding .977 at first base, his new position. He was 26th in the league in average, but first in average with runners in scoring position at .439. He tied for 8th with 3 home runs and tied Martijn Meeuwis for 12th with 25 RBI. He had the lowest fielding percentage of any of the league's main first basemen.

Daal continued his roller-coaster career in 2009 by fading to .219/.315/.271. playing in only 27 games due to an injury.

In 2010 Daal could not come up with the statistics he had in the years before, hitting only .243/.316/.288. He did manage to come in 9th on the RBI list with 25, 2 places after his team mate Wuillians Vasquez, and tied 10th with 8 doubles.