Historical Orioles Player Retrospectives- Asher Wojciechowski

The longest last name in Orioles history belongs to Asher Wojciechowski. A whole 13 letters. It is also the longest first name last name total.

Born into a military and missionary family, with a father who later transitioned into the private sector,Wojcischowski and his family moved around a lot when he was growing up, visiting a lot of different places. He lived in both the Dominican Republic and Romania during different points in his childhood. Although he was born in Florida, and had relatives that played baseball. It was actually in Romania that Woj would play baseball for the first time in an organized setting. Having played many other sports before, it was only when he was 11 that he would play for the Little League team local to him.

The Woj family would move twice while Asher was in high school, first to Michigan, and again to South Carolina. In South Carolina he would have the chance to raise his profile as both a draft prospect and a college recruit in the 2007 class. Having dropped other sports to completely focus on baseball, Woj would get his first looks with USA baseball during his time in South Carolina, but would not pitch for the team competitively until 2009. He would go undrafted out of high school and start his career as a college pitcher at The Citadel. In 3 years at the Citadel Woj would raise his draft stock immensely and become one of the best amaetur pitchers in the nation. In his junior year in 2010. He was a consensus All-American after going 12-3 with a 3.58 ERA and 155 strikeouts in leading his team to the NCAA Tournament. The first in half a decade and only 13th overall. For his career, Wojciechowski comprised a 20-7 record and ranks third all-time with 308 strikeouts. He would be named Southern Conference pitcher of the year prior to the 2010 draft.

In the 2010 draft Asher Wojciechowski would become just one of 40 Citadel players to be drafted, seemingly the first draftee who started first playing in Romania, and the highest drafted player from the Citadel. Woj was taken in the 1st round with the 41st pick by the Blue Jays. Two and three picks after Woj were Taijuan Walker and Nick Castellanos. Earlier selections include Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, Andrelton Simmons, fellow brief former Oriole Matt Harvy, and Noah Syndegaard who was also a supplemental pick. With the Blue Jays Asher would start his pro career with the Auburn Doubledays, of the Low A New York Penn League.

Over the next 3 seasons, Woj would have a fairly steady rise through the minors, reaching a higher level each season. He would be a part of a 10 player trade to the Astros. Wojciechowski, along with Ben Francisco, Francisco Cordero, David Rollins, Joe Musgrove, Carlos Pérez, and a player to be named later (Kevin Comer) were traded to the Houston Astros on July 20, 2012, in exchange for J. A. Happ, Brandon Lyon, and David Carpenter. Woj would spend parts of the next 4 seasons in the Astros minor league system before making the Opening Day roster coming out of Spring Training in 2015. He would make 3 starts before being optioned to the minors. He would make one more appearance with the Astros before being DFA’d in May the next season. Woj would bounce between a couple different AAA teams in 2016 before eventually making his way back to the majors after signing with the Reds near the start of the 2017 season. With the Reds, Woj would make 25 appearances as a swingman, a career high. At the end of the season he would elect free agency and eventually be signed by the Orioles on a minor league deal. He would again spend a couple seasons bouncing around several AAA teams before being brought back to the Orioles.

The Orioles would use Asher Wojciechowski in a couple different roles through the 2019 and 2020 seasons. In 27 games with the Orioles he would be used as an Opener, a traditional starter, and make a couple relief appearances. The team was not very competitive during these two seasons so a pitcher like Asher Wojciechowski was totally adequate for the expectations. Averaging over 5 innings a start, he would provide decent innings at below league average rate. His best moment with the Orioles came against the Red Sox on July 21st 2019. Woj threw 7.1 innings of one hit ball to combine with Paul Fry and Mychal Givens for a 5-0 1 hit shutout. Woj was near perfect through 5, and carried the no hitter through 7. The lone hit of the day was a Raffy Devers double to right field. The final line for Woj on this career day wouldbe 7.1 innings pitched, 10 Ks, 2 walks, and a HBP. 10 Ks is a career high for the pitcher. He followed up that performance with another solid outing against the Angel, going 7 innings again and allowing just 2 runs in a 9-3 victory. The Orioles were so bad in 2019 that two game stretch might be the best pitching performance of any pitcher besides John Means. 4% of Orioles wins in 2019 were 7 inning outings by Asher Wojciechowski that came back to back.

Woj would become a free agent after 2020 and eventually landed with the Yankees organization. He would spend most of his time with the AAA Scranton/ Wilkes-Barre RailRiders. He made one appearance for the Yankees which would ultimately be his final major league appearance. Injuries would start to pile up for Woj, as he had missed and would miss significant time in 2020, 2021, and 2022. After signing with the Mariners as a minor league free agent. He would develop several problems with his hip that would ultimately lead to hip surgery and him retiring at 33.

On his retirement:

I retired from playing professional baseball in July of 2022 after 13 years of playing. I cried like a baby sitting in my garage gym telling my wife Alanna Wojciechowski, that I was done playing baseball. My arthritic hips couldn’t handle it anymore. I couldn’t handle the pain anymore. It honestly felt like a death in the family. And to a certain degree it was. A huge part of me and Alannas life was over. My dream job was over. The excitement of every spring believing that “this is the year” was over. The challenge physically and mentally to be the best baseball player possible was over. The Grind, and I loved the Grind, was over.

Wojo Dojo is where he can be found now, working as a private pitching for young players in South Carolina. Speaking on his second act he said in an interview

"I would have loved to kept on going," he said. "My goal through my whole career was to play as long as possible. I had that dream to be a 10-year big leaguer and to play until I'm 40. I wasn't able to accomplish that, at first it stung. Mentally, I wasn't ready for it to be done, but physically, having to get a hip replacement, it came sooner than I thought. It was difficult to go through that when mentally I wasn't ready for it."

"Used to being gone for eight months," he said. "When I'm here in Charleston – we just had a baby– to be home, make a schedule around being with my wife and son, extremely beneficial and I'm extremely grateful to be in a position to be home and with family and not on the road constantly, and also still do what I love.

He has also traveled internationally to help coach. He has done some trips to Egypt to work with baseball players in Cairo and help grow the game there.