Maple had high hopes entering the 2020 season after finishing strong last year to win the division and make the playoffs. The major additions late last year of SP Maurice Gould and SP Jake Nelson combined with the off season acquisition of LF Marty Silver positioned Maple to be one of the favorites in the competitive TML Billy Martin Division.
However, Maple sits 13-19 after the first month and half of ABL play, 2.5 games back of rival South Carolina in 3rd place in the division. The pitching has been average and the bats have been really inconsistent to start the season. Maple is 9th in runs scored and 7th in runs against. Maple has been known in the past to be a team that can hit the long ball but, this year we have hit 24 blasts which is ranked tied for 10th in the TML. One bright spot has been the speed game where Bill Nelson leads the team with 11 swipes of Maples' 28 in total to tie for 2nd in the TML.
Brad "Super Man" Thomas is our best hitter so far batting .359 bavg, 6 HR & 22 RBI. Maurice Gould to no surprise is our best pitcher, 3-1 record, 3.65 ERA, 49.1 IP, 40 HA, 2 HRA, 15 BB, 40K with a 1.11 WHIP.
Maple has been fairly healthy to start the year with only minor bumps and bruises so far. The spotlight for the rest of May will be on once prized prospect SP Joshua Goldberg. The son of the owner has been up and down throughout his minor league career and has struggled in the rotation at the ABL level. He has the stuff and movement to be effective at times but, he just can't seem to throw strikes with any of his pitches. Joshua will move from the rotation to long relief and hopefully this will give him some shorter outings without the pressure of taking the ball in the starting role.
The minor league system continues to dominate with AAA Astoria, AA Sandy Springs and A Kingwood all leading their divisions.
The prospect watch has seen R1 phenom SP Rick Hill drop from the top 10 list to #45 meanwhile IFA acquisition SP Gabresilassie Cherono has climbed the Top 100 chart to #52. SP Hayden Capel is ranked #98 and made his first appearance in the Top 100 this past week. He was another one of the expensive IFA's that Maple went after in year 1 of IFA.
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