The 2020–21 Australian Baseball League season was the eleventh year of the

Australian Baseball League The Australian Baseball League (ABL) is a professional baseball league in Australia. The league is governed by the Australian Baseball Federation (ABF). It uses the same name as a now-defunct competition held during the 1990s, and though it sh ...

(ABL) season. The season was held from to . The

Melbourne Aces The Melbourne Aces are a professional baseball team in the Australian Baseball League based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Their home field is the Melbourne Ballpark in Altona. History On Friday, 20 August 2010 it was announced that ex ...

won their second consecutive title by defeating the

Perth Heat The Perth Heat is a baseball team in the current Australian Baseball League and a foundation member of the Australian Baseball League. It is now the most successful team in ABL, winning 15 Claxton Shields. Australian Baseball League (1989–19 ...

in a shortened playoff series. The league was one of the many sports affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, with its traditional November start pushed back to December, multiple in-season schedule changes, fixtures reduced to 24 games and the withdrawal of

Geelong-Korea The Geelong-Korea are a professional baseball team in the Australian Baseball League. The team is based in the city of Geelong, Victoria and the team's home ground is Geelong Baseball Park. Geelong-Korea were one of two expansion teams added to ...

and

Auckland Tuatara The Auckland Tuatara is a professional baseball team in the Australian Baseball League based in Auckland, New Zealand. They are the only team from New Zealand to compete in the ABL, and one of two expansion teams that entered the league in the ...

for the season.

Teams

On 12 November 2020, the league announced both

and

had pulled out of the season for financial reasons. This breached Auckland's licensing agreement with the ABL and it was given 28 days to address the breach. The league reverted to a six-team league for the first time since the

2017–18 Australian Baseball League season The 2017–18 Australian Baseball League season was the eighth Australian Baseball League The Australian Baseball League (ABL) is a professional baseball league in Australia. The league is governed by the Australian Baseball Federation (ABF). ...

Regular season

The league had originally planned a staggered 24 game schedule. Both Brisbane and Adelaide were to host week-long 'hubs' starting their season 5 January, later than everyone else, and making up games by playing doubleheaders and mid-week. Scheduled doubleheaders consist of a seven inning game followed by a nine inning game. The league uses the WBSC tiebreaker rule for all games going beyond the 9th inning, or

extra innings Extra innings is the extension of a baseball or softball game in order to break a tie. Ordinarily, a baseball game consists of nine regulation innings (in softball and high school baseball games there are typically seven innings; in Little Lea ...

beginning less than one hour to a curfew. Due to a more condensed schedule, roster limits were increased from 22 to 24, with no addition of underage development players. The ABL roster formation points system was updated to 360 points across 24 games, with non-affiliated overseas players being worth two points, as opposed to four in previous seasons. The season began with no state border restrictions until the first round of the season was impacted by the pandemic, with an outbreak of cases in Sydney's

Northern Beaches The Northern Beaches is a region within Northern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia, near the Pacific coast. This area extends south to the entrance of Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour), west to Middle Harbour and north to the entra ...

effected both Canberra and Sydney unable to host or travel to multiple states. Sydney after playing the first two games of the season, were unable to play due to border restrictions through to 22 January. The second round between Melbourne and Perth was also interrupted due to the previous cluster spreading to

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

and impacting Western Australia's border closure on the state. After one game, Perth was flown out to

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

with Canberra playing the remaining three games of the series. The Heat also replaced Melbourne's January fixtures in Brisbane. Canberra's and Melbourne's schedule was amended to play each other three consecutive rounds as the only logistical option with border closures. A single COVID case in Queensland on 7 January saw Brisbane's hub that included the Bandits, Heat & Giants end prematurely as all three teams were flown out early to Adelaide as to not be stuck with border closures. Additional fixtures were added to be played in Adelaide to make up for some of these lost games. Sydney was finally able to resume their season from 22 January against Canberra in

Lismore, New South Wales Lismore is a city in northeastern New South Wales, Australia and the main population centre in the City of Lismore Local government in Australia, local government area; it is also a regional centre in the Northern Rivers region of the State. It ...

. By playing in regional New South Wales, the Blue Sox did not have to deal with closed state borders, and Canberra did not have to enter a COVID hotspot. The season was extended out an additional week to allow teams, namely the Blue Sox who had only played two games prior to 22 January, to play at least the benchmark of 14 games to qualify for the postseason.

Standings

Statistical leaders

Awards

Postseason

Due to changes in the regular season presented by COVID enforced state border restrictions, the playoff structure was announced mid-season to include five teams. The fourth seed hosted the fifth seed 9 February in an elimination game before the winner joined the other three top seeded teams in a single elimination playoffs 11 & 12 February. The playoffs were originally scheduled to be a

double-elimination A double-elimination tournament is a type of elimination tournament competition in which a participant ceases to be eligible to win the tournament's championship upon having lost ''two'' games or matches. It stands in contrast to a single-elimina ...

playoffs over four days, but the host state

experienced an outbreak of COVID, which forced the playoffs to be shortened to be single elimination over two days due to looming Australian state border closures. This meant a game on 12 February between the Giants and Cavalry was played with the premise of it being the losers bracket of the double elimination playoff, before it was changed to effectively a third place playoff retrospectively.

References

External links

The Australian Baseball League
– Official ABL Website
Official Baseball Australia Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:2020-21 Australian Baseball League season Australian Baseball League seasons 2020 in Australian sport 2020 in baseball 2021 in Australian sport 2021 in baseball