MLB: Minnesota Twins get next Germans

The Minnesota Twins have secured the services of another German after Max Kepler.Niklas Rimmel receives a minor league contract and changes from the Buchbinder legionnaires from Regensburg to the USA after finishing school.

The 18-year-old will soon sign a minor league contract in the organisation of the Minnesota Twins, but will not change over until next summer.First, the right-handed pitcher wants to finish school.

Rimmel was trained at the Baseball Academy in Regensburg and played ten games for the Buchbinder legionnaires in the past Bundesliga season.

“I am very pleased that it has worked with a professional contract and the hard work over the last three years has been rewarded.It was a dream of mine to go to the USA, and now the dream becomes reality,”said Rimmel according to the homepage of the legionnaires, who admitted:”The fact that I now play in the same organization as Max Kepler is an additional incentive for me”.

Rimmel is already the fifth German player in total, which the Twins had signed up directly from Germany.Previously, Kepler and Tim Henkenjohann (2001), Rodney Gessmann (2007) and Markus Solbach (2011) signed with the Minneapolis team.Only Kepler managed to make it into the Big Leagues.

For the Baseball Academy in Regensburg, it is already the twelfth player to have made it into the States.

Starting next July, there will be six German players in the Minor Leagues, namely Pascal Amon, Sven Schüller (both Dodgers), Nadir Ljatifi (Reds) and Marco Cardoso (Red Sox).