Maple heads into the Allstar break in 3rd place in the Billy Martin Division, 3.5 GB of San Francisco.  The team troubles vs. Southpaws is becoming a big concern for management.  Currently, Maple is 11-18 vs. Lefties on the season while 31-29 vs. Righties.  Maple also has been subpar on the road at 17-25 while 25-22 at home.  Our record vs. Lefties and on the road will need to improve if we are going to win this division again this year.

Entering the trade deadline, Maple will be on the market for a SP and will be looking to trade from one of the deepest farm systems in the league.

Maple for the first time, will feature two of its top prospects in the OF in Arama Huanu and Pete Moore due to injuries suffered by Bill Nelson and Marty Silver.  We are excited to see what these kids can do up with the big club.  Another surprise this year is the bullpen.  Currently, the pen is 3rd in ERA at 4.09 and improving each month.  Joshua Goldberg who struggled poorly as a Starter is showing signs of bouncing back for a decent year in the pen as a long reliever.  Kent Tukulve Jr. has also been a nice surprise.  Kent is the son of the former MLB submarine closer of a team called the Pirates.  I wonder what happen to that league?  I'm glad the ABL exists!

Maple overall is more balanced as a team so we remain confident we can make the playoffs again this year and hopefully get past the 1st round.

Down on the farm;  Astoria in AAA, Sandy Springs in AA and Kingwood in A ball all lead their divisions.  We have a ton of prospects ready for the promotion but, really no where to put them.  Our best SP prospects Rick Hill and Gabresilassie Cherono have pitched well.  Unfortunately, Rick "BOY" Hill went down with an injury last sim and will miss some time.  Good news is nothing serious about this injury the doctors say;  just a sore shoulder.

This years draft pick is turning heads - John Stroud in A Ball Kingwood.  Stroud has posted a 2-0 record in 4 GS with a 3.28 ERA in 24.2 IP.  We loved him out of College and was really happy to see him slip to us in Round 1 Supplement Pick #2.  This kid is a winner at Auburn and a former allstar caliber player.

We end July with some big series;  4 @ South Carolina, 3 H vs. Jersey and 1 H vs. San Francisco  prior to the Trade Deadline.

Maple is in 2nd place in the TML Billy Martin division 5 games behind San Francisco.  Maple is used to coming from behind to win the division so there is no real panic with just over 100 games left in the 2020 regular season.  Maple has improved each month so far early in the season posting 10-13 opening April result, followed by a 13-15 May and an early 4-3 start in June.

Statistically speaking, Maple ranks no worst than 8th in the TML in any batting category.  3rd in Stolen bases & 8th in Bavg is their best and worst mark in the TML.  Pitching wise, Maple's staff has struggled with BBs (12th in the TML) meanwhile the team is 1st in Strikeouts and 2nd in Bullpen ERA.  Compared to the past few seasons, the overall statistics for Maple have improved relative to the other contenders in the TML.

Down on the farm system, the once top rated minor league crop is now ranked 20th.  The former R1 phenom Rick "BOY" Hill has slipped considerably this year to #45.  Meanwhile Cherono SP has moved up quite rapidly to #38 and is simply dominating with the Ks this year in A Ball Kingwood.  SP Capel has been in and out of the top 100 the past few sims and currently sits #99.  Both Cherono and Capel were highly bid on by Maple in the inaugural INT FA frenzy in the ABL.

Injury wise, Maple remains pretty healthy at this point in the season with only Domingo Pena MR and Ju-wei Yuan MR on the DL both due back within the next 3-5 weeks.

The farm system features 3 first place teams - Astoria AAA, Sandy Springs in AA and Kingwood in A Ball.

Watch Outs - OF Arama Huanu and OF Pete Moore are waiting in the wings for a shot at the ABL.  There is a big log jam in the OF in Maple right now so look for a move or two depending on Maples' position come late July.  SS Christian Rivera in AAA is also receiving alot of interest from fellow ABL teams.  The jury is still out on C Dean Smith and OF Dominic Owens both in AAA ball too.

It should be another fun season in the TML - Billy Martin division where things are usually settled in the last sim of the season!

ABL - 2020 Season - Year IX - Maple Marauders Opening Months

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.

Maple Year in Review & Year to Come...

Maple finished the 2019 season with an impressive 85-77 record considering what the expectations were going into the year.  For the first few months, Maple had their ups and downs but, things started to change around the trade deadline.  Maple acquired several players to help their stretch run when management felt no team in the TML Billy Martin division was going to run away with the division title.

Maple acquired SP Jake Nelson from Eureka, SP Maurice Gould from Montreal, MR Dennis Inman from San Francisco & MR Domingo Pena from Eureka.  The key difference makers were definitely Nelson and Gould who combined for 20-10 W/L record down the stretch.

In the post season, Maple went up against Jacksonville the #1 seed in the TML.  It was a hard fought series losing 4-2 in games with each of the 4 losses by 1 run.  Jacksonville has been renamed "walk off city".

The outlook for the 2020 season looks promising.  Marty Silver was acquired from Brooklyn and will most likely see time at 1B, OF and DH throughout the year.  Bartolo Valentin was acquired from Dallas and will hold down the starting CF job as Maple looks to improve the defensive efficiency in 2020.  Outside of players such as Gould, Pena and 1B Reynolds nobody on the Maple active roster is older than 30.  This team should be competitive for the next few years.

Down on the farm, the #1 ranked minor league system took a hit making those blockbuster trades.  Currently ranked #17th overall with Rick Hill SP the top prospect.  CL Zeus Hallman is the 2nd highest rated prospect followed by Gabresilassie Cherono SP ranked as the 3rd highest in the organization.  Some may remember a couple of seasons ago Maple opening the vault to land some big names in the International Free Agency Frenzy.  Cherono was one of those names that signed for a whopping $4.4M to leave South African and join the Maple International Complex.  It was nice to finally see someone make an impact in our organization from that spending spree.

Maple management goes for it!

After "hanging" around through the allstar break in the Billy Martin division, Maple made a huge splash in the ABL acquiring top notch SP Maurice Gould.  The price was high in terms of top prospects being sent back to Montreal but, the Maple organization was poised to end their 4 year playoff drought.

Maple sent to Montreal SP Ramu Pavi, SP Jesus Ramirez, SP Yoshiaga Ueno and MR Manny Palma.  All 4 of these pitchers were either R1 picks and/or top 100 OSA prospects at one point in their careers.  In return Gould landed in Maple and is arguably one of the best all time players in the ABL history and without a doubt its most dominant pitcher during that time.

The addition of Gould along with SP Nelson, OF Dave Carlisle and MR arms Inman and Pena make Maple a true contender for a title this year in the ABL.  Since the end of June, Maples record is 16-8 in July, 15-13 in August and 1-0 in September (32-21).  Maple sits 1 game behind South Carolina and 2 games ahead of Jersey who is also "hanging" around.

The Schedule for September features:
1 @ JERSEY, 3 HOME vs. JERSEY
3 @ SOUTH CAROLINA, 3 HOME vs. SOUTH CAROLINA
3 HOME vs. MILE HIGH
3 HOME vs. GEORGIA
3 @ CABO SAN LUCAS
3 @ KANSAS CITY
4 @ SAN FRANCISCO

14 on the ROAD and 12 at HOME.  The final 3 games at HOME vs. SOUTH CAROLINA should be a deciding factor for a playoff spot in the TML.

There is a chance that 2 teams in the Billy Martin Division may qualify for the post season.  The Wild Card hunt is very close right now.

Maple / Georgia tied for the lead
Jersey / Boston 2 games back
Las Vegas 3 games back

Anything can happen in the ABL down the stretch as we have learned many times before.

Maple allstars & June Update 2019

The TML allstar team was announced for the 2019 season early in July and the following Maple Marauders made the team:

SP Jeff Nelson (acquired from Eureka); 7-2 record; 3-1 with Maple.
CL John Jones; 6-2 record, 10 saves

Maple struggled in June going 12-15 and have opened July a better at 4-2.  We stand in 3rd place in the Billy Martin Division 2.5 GB after entering June with the division lead.  This past month Maple was involved in a couple of trades that brought prime time ABL SP to a team that has struggled to have any consistency from their front line starters.  Maurice Gould and Jeff Nelson had a solid 1-2 punch to the rotation and should be a dangerous pair if Maple can find a way to make the post season this year.

One of the bright spots in the Maple organization this season is Bill Nelson LF.  Bill is batting .314, .401 obpct and .453 slugging with 34 SB in 48 attempts.  Maple hasn't seen too many players like him in terms of stealing a bag or two in a game.

Down on the farm, Astoria AAA, is in 2nd place, Sandy Springs AA, leads the division and Kingwood A, is in 1st place.

The minor system ranking has dropped due to the two blockbuster trades.  The system was ranked as high as #1 overall but, now sits at #15.  Rick "BOY" Hill SP selected in the Rookie Draft a few weeks ago is the highest ranked prospect according to OSA at #11.

It should be an interesting stretch run in the Billy Martin Division.  The race is wide open between all four clubs.  South Carolina and Maple have been the most active in the trade front but, I am sure that Jersey and San Francisco haven't shown their cards yet.

Maple back in 1st place!

Maple has climbed back to 1st place in the Billy Martin Division through June 9th, 2019 of play.  We are tied with Jersey meanwhile the other two teams San Francisco and South Carolina are not far behind at 1 and 3 GB.  Maple has been very solid in Extra Inning games;  5-2 so far this season.  Winning the close games is something we haven't done in recent years.  We are also playing a lot better within the division.

Maple made a major trade to enhance their SP rotation by acquiring from Eureka Jake Nelson who is 3-1 on the year with a 3.32 ERA and 1.19 WHIP.  He will face SoCAL in his debut with the Marauders next sim.  Maple gave up promising hurler Pedro Perez who was ranked a top the OSA and also sent packing 1B Braden Murphy who had hopes of making the team within the next couple of seasons playing behind FA acquisition Blake Reynolds from Seattle.  Murphy was also part of the $10M trade with Dallas.  Maple trade winds are still swirling as management as made a decision to go4it this year and see how far we can ride this momentum.  After the first three years in the ABL, Maple has not made the playoffs.

The Annual Rookie Draft has just been completed and Maple only had one selection in the first two rounds after acquiring FA Colin St. John (formerly with Las Vegas).  In the first round with pick #3 - Maple took highly touted phenom Rick "The Franchise" Hill, SP from the CBL Calgary organization.  The fans cheered #GOLDI, #GOLDI after making this pick.  You have to appreciate the spirit of the 10th man in Maple.  Hill only played one season in the CBL posting 117 Ks in 86.1 IP with a 6-4 record, 2.08 ERA and a modest WHIP of 1.23.  He also was the main work horse in their Lester B. Person Championship Cup win.  Unlike past drafts we didn't land a bunch of solid players that we have very high hopes in eventually making the ABL one day.  Hill will be our make or break draft this year.

In the minors, all three teams are poised to win their divisions again, Astoria in AAA, Sandy Springs in AA and Kingwood in A ball all are in the lead or withing 1 game of the leader.  A ton of players demanding a promotion with really no where to put them in general.  We have been less patient with the veterans in order to give some of the youngsters a chance to move up in the organization.

Maple dropped to 4th overall in the Top Minor League Organizations after the trade with Eureka this past sim.  The new entry into the top five for Maple is Zeus "BIG THUNDER" Hallman, CL in AAA Astoria.  He sits at #51 overall and has 20Ks in 10 IP in AAA since his promotion.

Maple is looking forward to the next ABL event - International Free Agency which takes place end of June just prior to the ABL Allstar game.