Maple finished with their worst season in seven years. At 58-104 the Marauders for the 2nd straight season finished dead last in the TML Billy Martin Division. GM Goldberg said after the season was over, "When you finish 35 games out of 1st place you can't do any worse". Maple did show some promise with the bats this year returning back to the playoff years for a team batting average of .263 but, the pitching continued to struggle posting their worst ever team ERA at 5.23 and BABIP at .325. Overall Maple is now 565-569 in sever seasons of ABL action. Attendance has taken a strong hit as well. Only 2.4M~ fans showed up to see the Marauders play this year. That is 700K worse than last season and the lowest mark in seven seasons. Fans have questioned team spending or lack of it this year as team payroll dropped from $122M~ down to $59M~. The good news is that management has aligned the balance sheet to go after highly touted INT FA, leverage player contracts and pour funds into Player Development and Scouting as the team tries to build from the minor leagues up. Maple's exact finances are not know but, speculation has it that they made close to $38M~ this year and if correct it would be the 2nd highest profit in seven seasons.
The 2018 Draft was a successful one for the Marauders. They landed SPs Pavi & Kimball and OFs Huanu & Tenegesdal & 2B Reaveley all of which look poised to jump to the next level in 2019. This represents the 2nd consecutive season for Maple in the draft arena where they have had favorable results. In 2017, Maple landed 1B Lee and Knaus both look like future starters in the ABL and SS Omori is already playing in Maple after being called up this past season.
Outlook for 2019 is promising due to a promising rookie emerging in the OF. Brad Thomas in his first season with Maple posted statistics that put him on the all time single season leader board for the team. His .320 bavg was good for 5th, his .381 obpct was good for 9th, his .518 slugging pct was good for 9th, his .899 OPS was good for 5th. John Jones also took over the CL role for the Marauders this year. His 24 saves was good for 4th all-time in a single season. Meanwhile there is still uncertainty with former R1 pick Jesus Ramirez out of University of Florida. He did pile up the Ks as predicted with 185 this season good for 2nd all-time in a single season sitting 2 Ks behind Mr. Roboto Martinez who had 187Ks in 2012. The issue with Ramirez is his control. The depth at SP coming along to Maple in the next 1-3 seasons might result in Ramirez finishing his career off as a solid MR.
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