How the Brewers could one day have MLB's first all-German battery

Paul Hoff was 15 years old when he left school and flew over 4,000 miles to chase a professional baseball career.

It’s rare for a German athlete to grow up playing America’s pastime. It’s even rarer for a player from Germany to sign with a Major League club. Hoff defeated all those odds.

Finding baseball in Germany

Soccer is king in Germany. But in Dohren, a village with a population of just over 1,000 people, baseball has taken root.

Hoff knew of the sport, but it wasn’t until a classmate, Jeremy Fernandez-Ruiz, son of the Dohren Wild Farmers head coach Pedro Fernandez-Ruiz, encouraged his third-grade friends to start playing baseball that Hoff signed up to play the sport that would change his life.

“It’s an amazing little town,” Hoff said of Dohren, home to the smallest Bundesliga baseball club. “Everywhere it’s soccer, and nobody really cares about baseball, but in Dohren, the whole village is in love with baseball. It’s amazing. It’s an amazing place to play baseball.”

Hoff trained in Dohren for the next 10 years, where he eventually became a Wild Farmer, and at the German Baseball Academy (Deutsche Baseball Akademie, or DBA), which helped him earn a spot on the U-12 German national team after he impressed coaches with a high-velocity fastball, wicked offspeed pitches and the ability to play first base.

His dream of becoming a professional athlete never faded, but coming from a country where it’s unlikely more than one player will sign a contract with an MLB club per year, Hoff played out of love for the sport. It wasn’t until 2023 that everything changed.

“I had never played baseball with the vision to become a professional baseball player, it was always the dream, but playing in Germany you don’t think about it too much,” Hoff said. “I was in the Dominican Republic [when] the coach told me that I had a chance to make it and that he thought I could sign a professional contract. That’s when I really thought about it.”

Hoff’s rise in potential

Hoff knew he barely escaped danger. The 6-foot-5 righty lifted his hat, laughed and smiled at his catcher. It was the fourth inning of the championship game in the DRD International Baseball Academies Tournament, and Hoff, who got the start for Germany against Puerto Rico, was an out away from logging four strong innings when a Puerto Rico batter hooked a foul ball mere inches inside the left-field foul pole.

Hoff put his glove up to his mouth, chuckling in relief that he got away with a hanging offspeed pitch. But seconds later, the 6-foot-5 right-hander was screaming with excitement after punching out his fifth batter of the game. His final line -- four innings, five strikeouts and one earned run against a loaded Puerto Rico squad.

That got the Brewers’ attention.

“We saw [Hoff] and actually ID’d him at the European Championships in 2021, because he was really dominant and you could see he had a lot of upside, but then he went down with the German team and pitched really well against Puerto Rico,” Brewers international scout Andrew Berglund said. “He was like 88, 89 [mph] with his fastball, and had good feel with his changeup. We were like, ‘This kid has to be on our radar even more.’ That’s what really jump-started our desire to go after him.”

That start was the first step to Hoff’s eventual professional contract, but it was the culmination of over 20 years of work and relationships the Brewers, and Berglund, have built in Europe that helped seal the deal with Hoff. In fact, the first player to ever sign a professional MLB contract from Germany’s baseball Bundesliga was Michael Franke, who signed with Milwaukee in 2000.

Berglund wasn’t with the Brewers then, but has been involved in scouting prospects since 2009, when he began developing a relationship with Georg Bull, the director of the Deutsche Baseball Akademie, or DBA. Bull, who acted as Hoff’s agent, was able to get Hoff -- with his parents’ approval -- to travel to the Dominican Republic to train and work out in front of Major League scouts.

“We know the work ethic is going to be there if a person is willing to go to the Dominican as an amateur and challenge themselves to learn new things and be uncomfortable for a bit,” said Taylor Green, the Brewers’ special assistant of scouting and international player development.

“Especially being a German kid -- going to a whole different country with a whole different language. That is not easy. Not easy at all, for anybody. That was definitely a high signal in terms of toughness and ability to adjust in different situations. Because that’s the key to all of this. … This game is really hard and you have to adjust as you move your way through the different levels.”

The plan was originally for Hoff to spend four weeks in the Dominican Republic, but his coaches told him that he had such great potential that they wanted him to stay for a year. After Hoff, who was 15 years old at the time, spoke with his parents, they settled on six months.

It was a beneficial compromise.

“[Hoff] knew he wanted to be a professional, so the best place he could go down and train was to face hitters in the Dominican Republic and work with an academy down there,” Berglund said. “He just wanted it.”

“He was facing really good Dominican hitters, he was throwing really well, training hard. He pitched in front of Taylor Green and he really liked him. That’s when we just said ‘OK, let’s keep talking.’”

The first German link

Before the Brewers considered signing Hoff, international scouts had their eyes set on Yannic Walther. A catching prospect with top-grade defensive ratings, Berglund and Bull worked together to get Walther in front of other Milwaukee scouts.

Walther, like Hoff, trained at the DBA and played in international tournaments for Germany since he was 9 years old. In 2023, Walther was a large part of Germany’s fourth-place finish in the 2023 European Championships, the country’s highest finish since 2016.

“Representing your country and doing it at such a young age, there is nothing bigger, at all in sports …” Walther said. “That made baseball really great for us and we were determined to get better and do better in these tournaments. It means everything, really.”

Because of the DBA, the 19-year-old was exposed to scouts at an early age. But without a large number of baseball facilities, teams or players in Germany, Walther acknowledged there were mental hurdles that had to be cleared by playing a sport that is uncommon at home.

“It’s something in Germany that we don’t have. In the Dominican or the States, every city has a Max Scherzer in that city or a Clayton Kershaw in that city,” Walther said. “But in Germany, you have Max Kepler. And that’s the only guy, really.

“It’s not easy to get signed. You don’t see scouts every day. You don’t compete at the highest level. You ask, ‘Do I really have what it takes?’ But if you see other guys before you doing it, you go, ‘Oh, yeah. It’s possible.’ That motivates you and makes you believe.”

Walther signed with the Brewers in late 2022, the third player born in Germany -- Hoff, Tim Fischer (Dodgers) -- to sign with a Major League club since 2022, and was assigned to the Dominican Summer League. Moving halfway across the world is difficult for anyone, but for Walther, Brewers scouts weren’t concerned.

His personality, talent and a unique trait set him apart from other European prospects.

“The first thing that stuck out about him was his defensive ability, for sure, he is a very, very good defender. But a really interesting piece about him is that he is fluent in Spanish,” Green said. “From our standpoint of going to the DSL, it just makes the transition so much easier -- Just being able to communicate with the pitcher.”

“The coaches and players he was with last year at the Dominican complex just rave about him. He’s friends with everybody, the coaches love him.”

Walther excelled in his first year of professional baseball, and now has his eyes set on the next step -- reaching Arizona. But in the meantime, the Brewers brought in a familiar name.

The first German battery?

With Walther already on board, the Brewers used their relationship with Bull to eventually sign Hoff on Jan. 15 -- the first day international free agents are able to sign with Major League clubs.

Not only was Hoff the only German to sign on the first day of international free agency, but he was the only European out of hundreds of signees across the Majors.

“We’re so excited to have two of the best European prospects, who happen to both be German, part of the Brewers family,” Berglund said. “I think it’s great for international baseball. I think it’s great for those players and coaches who help develop them. We are super excited to see how far they can go.”

Hoff and Walther had heard of each other before signing with Milwaukee, but they have yet to even play catch together. However, their reputations for being some of the best young players in Germany had each player excited about playing for the same organization.

The familiarity with each other has allowed Walther to act as Hoff’s mentor while he acclimates to his new life in the Dominican.

“We both played in a top league, so when somebody is up there at 16, 17 years old and throwing up to 90 miles per hour, yeah, I heard about that,” Walther said of Hoff.

Hoff added: “I heard a lot of stories about [Walther] because he’s a great guy and he’s kind of a legend in the DBA, but yeah, he helps a lot. He’s translating everything for me … it’s great.”

The duo will be over 4,000 miles from home when they throw their first bullpen session together, an event marked by years of scouting, training and perfect timing that will signify the start of a potentially history-in-the-making development process.

Hoff and Walther have a long way to go, but reaching the Majors to become the first all-German battery would be just one more dream fulfilled by a couple teenagers who have already defied the odds.

“We don’t envision signing anybody unless we believe that they have a legitimate shot at going to the big leagues,” Berglund said. “Can you imagine an all-German battery? That would be something …”

“Eventually, that’s the dream. And it’s something we definitely chase,” Walther said. “It would be unbelievable.”