The 2019–20 Australian Baseball League season was the tenth year

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 s ...

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

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

won their first title after defeating the Adelaide Giants in the postseason.

Teams

On 27 August 2019, the Adelaide franchise announced it changed its name from the Adelaide Bite to the Adelaide Giants. This was the name of the Adelaide franchise from 1989–1999 and is the first renaming of a team in the league's history.

The Tuatara also moved their team from the baseball-specific venue of McLeod Park to

North Harbour Stadium North Harbour Stadium is a stadium situated in Albany, in North Shore City, New Zealand. It was opened in 1997, after nearly a decade of discussion, planning and construction. Rugby union, association football, rugby league, and baseball are a ...

, which was converted to a baseball field for the first time.

Regular season

The league retains a 10-round, 40 game schedule, with teams playing division rivals eight times and inter division teams four times. Auckland, Brisbane, Canberra and Sydney grouped into the 'Northeast Division' with Adelaide, Geelong, Melbourne and Perth grouped into the 'Southwest Division'. 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. In November, 2019 it was announced all games played at

would be reduced to seven innings to suit a local broadcast deal with

Sky Sport Sky Sport or Sky Sports may refer to: *Sky Group **Sky Sports, a group of sports television channels available in the UK and Ireland ** Sky Sport (Germany), a group of sports television channels available in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, formerl ...

. In round six, one of the games between the Bandits and Cavalry in Canberra was suspended due to poor air quality conditions following the severity of the

2019–20 Australian bushfire season The 201920 Australian bushfire season commenced with serious uncontrolled fires in June 2019. , fires this season have burned an estimated , destroyed over 5,900 buildings (including 2,779 homes) and killed at least 34 people. An estimated o ...

, with the game completed the next day. The following round seven matchup between the Giants and Cavalry in Canberra was cancelled due to the same poor air quality, reducing their schedule to 36 games. The conditions were the main contributing factor to Cavalry player

Gavin Cecchini Gavin Glenn Christopher Joseph Cecchini ( ; born December 22, 1993) is an American former professional baseball second baseman. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Mets. Early life Cecchini was born in Lake Charles, Louisia ...

returning home before the completion of the season. Each team's series roster consists of 22 eligible players in addition to four amateur underage development players.

* ''holds tiebreaker''

Statistical leaders

Awards

Postseason

The postseason continued to include the top five teams, with a single wild card game between the fourth and fifth seeds prior to two rounds of best-of-three finals series. The top seed was awarded to the team with the best regular season record, with the other division winner awarded the second seed. The third and fourth seed were awarded to the two divisional runner ups with the fifth seed being given to the team with the next best season record. The only change to the playoff structure from the previous season was the higher semi final was given home field advantage in games two and three (if required), with game one hosted by the lower seed. Shane Robinson was named Championship Series

MVP MVP most commonly refers to: * Most valuable player, an award, typically for the best performing player in a sport or competition * Minimum viable product, a concept for feature estimating used in business and engineering MVP may also refer to: ...

after batting 5/10 with three RBI and one home-run. He batted .412/.500/.647 across the postseason.

Championship Series

References

External links

The Australian Baseball League
– Official ABL Website
Official Baseball Australia Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:2019-20 Australian Baseball League season Australian Baseball League seasons 2019 in Australian sport Australian Baseball League season 2020 in Australian sport Australian Baseball League season