Alltime Baseball League

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ABL April 2021 Batting & Pitching Registers

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May 2021 Standings & Statistics

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May 2021 Batting & Pitching Registers

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ABL Around the Horn: May 2021

• San Antonio's Elmer Flick saw his hitting streak snapped at 28 games on May 29, the second longest mark in ABL history and the longest in the Western League (Orlando's Ryan Braun had a 30-game streak in 2020). Flick was a three-time All Star and two-time Gold Glove winner with Charlotte before signing a 7-year, $184 million deal with San Antonio this offseason that makes him the league's highest paid player.
  
  
• The ABL has yet to have a team finish a season with a .600 winning percentage. But two months in, Louisville and Denver are both playing .700 ball. The key? Pitching! Of the top 10 players in ERA in the ABL so far, Denver and Louisville account for eight of them. The outsiders? Sacramento's Hal Newhouser and Phoenix's Red Faber.
  
  
• When Orlando took Barry Bonds with the top pick in November's amateur draft, he was hailed as an immediate difference maker. After he hit .221 in April with one homer, the skeptics - and starved-for-success Orlando fans - were quick to worry as the team stumbled to a 10-15 start. But Bonds posted a .998 OPS with six homers in May and, in an impressive feat for a rookie, leads the league in walks. He's batting .283/.392/.455 at the moment.
  
  
• Worst free agent contract to this point: Boston's Bob Friend, who was signed to a 7-year, $130 million deal and has gone 0-6 with a ghastly 10.21 ERA. Friend, a reliever for three seasons with Memphis, broke through last season with a terrific 1.31 ERA. Boston thought that breakthrough would serve them better getting more innings as a starter. But a shift back to the bullpen has to be considered at this point, as does a possible injury.
  

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June 2021 Standings & Statistics

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June 2021 Batting & Pitching Registers

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ABL Around the Horn: June 2021

• The Chicago Hitmen aren't quite ready to relinquish the Eastern League North division title, even with Louisville's terrific start to the season. The Hitmen posted an 18-10 mark in June and have won 9 of 10 to shave six games off Louisville lead in the last week and a half. While the deficit is still 11 games, the defending champions know they have plenty of season - and plenty of head-to-head matchups with Louisville - remaining. The breakout of Cal Ripken, a disappointment until this season, and continued development of Lou Gehrig have been the offensive stories. and Mickey Mantle has recovered from his .181 April to bat .308 over the past two numbers, though his power has been slow to come. The struggles of Sam McDowell (6.24 ERA) have now become a legitimate concern however.
  
  
• Louisville has pretty much done everything right this season, despite a relative downturn in June. At the forefront has been Dave Henderson, who after compiling 16 homers as a reserve over his first three seasons leads the entire ABL in homers with 21 before the All-Star Break. A free agent after this season, Henderson is setting himself up for a big payday - but he dismisses such talk at this point, saying all he's focused on is bringing Louisville its first division title, and ultimately an ABL championship.
  
  
• The Eastern League South has annually been the ABL's tightest division. That remains true, as all four teams are separated by 4 1/2 games. But it's also the ABL's worst division, as the first place Orlando Orcas sit right at .500. Free agency did a job on Memphis and Alabama, in particular. But still, it appears likely the division will once again have a pennant race as it has in each of the league's first three years.
  
  
• When the 2021 season began, Tom Henke - coming off three years as New York's closer but having declined each season - was without a team. New York didn't re-sign him, and Henke was unable to get the terms he wanted on a contract. And so he waited. In early May, the Denver Pilots called, and in a week Henke had two wins and two saves in his first four appearances. He now sits as their closer, with a 5-0 record and six saves in 19 appearances, boasting a 0.65 WHIP and a 1.37 ERA. A sign that, much like in Louisville, everything is going right for the Pilots.
  

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2021 ABL All-Star Game Starters

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Who's Got Pitching?
East shuts out West in 4th Annual ABL All-Star Game

SACRAMENTO (July 13, 2021) -- The Eastern League is the offensive league, the Western League is the defensive league. That's been the narrative that nobody has been able to explain, given that each league plays under the same rules.

But the East showed tonight that it has plenty of quality arms in its own right, as they notched the first shutout in ABL All-Star Game history, topping the West by a score of 2-0.

Louisville's Bob Feller threw two perfect innings on the front end and Bryan Harvey of Charlotte worked the final two innings in a surprise move by Chicago manager Paul Richards.

Both runs came in the second off Denver's Steve Carlton in his second inning of work. New York's Snuffy Stirnweiss hit an RBI single to plate Alabama's Al Kaline, who opened the inning with a single. Louisville's Dave Henderson followed with a single and Alabama's Hank Thompson worked out a nine-pitch walk to load the bases. Stirnweiss brought in Kaline and Louisville's Jimmy Wynn hit into a double play that got Henderson home for the 2-0 lead.

The West was hitless until the fifth and mustered only two hits on the night - to Los Angeles' Willie Mays and Sacramento's Lou Boudreau.

Harvey earned the game's Most Valuable Player honors.

The victory evens the all-time All-Star Game series at two apiece. The East won the inaugural contest 2-1 before dropping the last two, 3-1 and 6-5, respectively.

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ABL 2021 Midseason Report
Eastern League North

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ABL 2021 Midseason Report
Eastern League South

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ABL 2021 Midseason Report
Western League North

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Two of the logos for the new expansion teams to begin play next season.

Columbus Crushers


Las Vegas Bosses


GH

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ABL 2021 Midseason Report
Western League South

GH

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July 2021 Standings & Statistics

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July 2021 Batting & Pitching Registers

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ABL Around the Horn: July 2021

• Although both leagues utilize the designated hitter rule, the Eastern League has always been the more offense-oriented league, while the Western League has always been more pitching focused. The Eastern League ERA's in the ABL's first three seasons were 4.24, 4.36 and 4.30, while the West's were 4.18, 4.09 and 3.88. This year, the Eastern League ERA has shot up a quarter of a run to 4.61, while the West has held steady at 3.86. Why? Nobody can answer that. But the Eastern League's BABIP is .297. The West's? .283.

• The thoughts of a Louisville runaway in the Eastern League North seem to have dissipated, though the collapse would be the worst in ABL history. They aren't at that point yet, still holding an 8 1/2 game lead. But after a 41-12 start, Louisville has played .500 ball since June 1, while New York has gone 31-20 and defending-champion Chicago has gone 31-22.

• Many assumed the fight for Eastern League Outstanding Rookie would be between Orlando's Barry Bonds and New York's Mike Schmidt. And the winner may come from New York...but it likely won't be Schmidt. Chief Wilson, taken in the November 2018 amateur draft, is leading the league in average and RBIs after two years in the minor leagues. His line - .364-19-74 - led by a July in which he batted .427, is unexpected, though the Heroes always knew there was talent there. Bonds (.258-15-58) has been solid if streaky, while Schmidt (.194-12-43) has struggled despite showing the power potential that prompted New York to draft him in the first place.

• Smoky Joe Wood, then with Portland, set the ABL single-season ERA record last season with his 2.47 mark. Now with San Antonio, it appears Wood could see his record fall this season. Denver's Steve Carlton has been outstanding, posting a 2.05 ERA en route to a 14-6 mark for the Western League North leading Denver Pilots. The Pilots are 15 1/2 games up on Omaha, and seem poised for a deep postseason run. Carlton, Billy Pierce (9-5, 2.63) and Cole Hamels (16-4, 2.73) sit 1-2-3 in the Western League in ERA and will be a tough beat for anyone in a playoff series.

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August 2021 Standings & Statistics

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August 2021 Batting & Pitching Registers

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ABL Around the Horn: August 2021

• Ty Cobb is making his run at the ABL hitting streak mark of 30, held by Ryan Braun. The Denver centerfielder has hit in 25 straight games and leads the entire ABL in batting with a .369 clip as we head into the season's final month. Cobb batted .417 in August and, barring something unforeseen over the season's final month, should bring home his first Most Valuable Player award.

• So much of the focus has been on Denver and Louisville terrific seasons that some other team stories have gotten lost. One of those is the San Antonio Stallions, who after three straight seasons in the cellar are poised for their first winning season - and maybe more. The Stallions are 69-62 and 5 1/2 games behind Phoenix in the Western League South. That lead was trimmed to 1 1/2 a little more than a week ago. San Antonio's free agent commitment last offseason has paid dividends, as they made Elmer Flick the league's highest paid player and he has responded, batting .339 (second to Cobb) and playing his usual superb defense that should net him his third Gold Glove award. Bob Robertson, signed to a minor league deal after Boston didn't pick up his contract, has hit 15 homers in part-time duty for a lineup that leads the Western League in homers. But the big story has been Kevin Mitchell. Taken as the Stallions' first-round pick in the inaugural draft, to the shock of virtually everyone, Mitchell has been invisible for three seasons. This season, the 27-year-old leftfielder has smacked 21 homers and driven in 71 runs, good for fourth and third in the league, respectively.

• Perhaps "Around the Horn" jinxed Steve Carlton last month, saying he would likely break Smoky Joe Wood's ABL ERA record of 2.47. Carlton posted a 4.26 ERA in August to raise his season mark from 2.05 to 2.42. He still holds the best mark in the entire ABL, however.

• After an injury-plagued 2020 season in which he posted a .265 average with 10 homers as a pending free agent, Will Clark decided to take a one-year deal to stay in New York and try to regain the form of his first two seasons in which he averaged .324-26-96 and took home the 2018 Eastern League Outstanding Hitter Award. His bet on himself looks like a smart one, as he's third in the league in batting at .325 with 13 homers and 68 RBI. He'll get a nice long-term deal somewhere this offseason when he re-enters the market. Whether it will be from New York or not remains to be seen.