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Australian Baseball League All-Star Game Has Some Familiar Names

By Bobby Mueller

Jul 1, 2016; Phoenix, AZ, USA; Detailed view of the baseball bat of San Francisco Giants outfielder Gregor Blanco against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
Jul 1, 2016; Phoenix, AZ, USA; Detailed view of the baseball bat of San Francisco Giants outfielder Gregor Blanco against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports /
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The Australian Baseball League All-Star Game will be played on Thursday, December 22, and there are some recognizable names on the rosters.

While December is a cold, dark time for fans of Major League Baseball who still have a couple months until spring training rolls around, there is baseball being played in the southern hemisphere. The Australian Baseball League (ABL) began play in early November and will finish up with their championship series in early February. On Thursday, they play their mid-season All-Star Game.

The ABL All-Star Game is a competition between Team Australia and the World All-Stars. The World All-Star team features prospects from Major League Baseball, Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, the Korea Baseball Organization, and Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League. The Australian team will compete in March in the World Baseball Classic after beating out South Africa, the Philippines, and New Zealand in their qualifier earlier this year. They have never advanced past the first round in previous World Baseball Classics and look to have a tough time advancing past the first round this year. Their pool includes Cuba, China, and Japan.

The player with the highest-profile playing in the ABL All-Star Game is former MLB pitcher Jeremy Guthrie. He started two games for the Kansas City Royals in the 2014 World Series, including Game 7, and won 91 games in his 12-year big league career. Another former major league pitcher, Mark Hamburger, is also on the World All-Stars roster. Hamburger pitched eight innings in relief for the 2011 Texas Rangers.

One of the top major league prospects playing in this game is young outfielder Ronald Acuna of the Atlanta Braves. Acuna is fourth in the ABL in batting average, with a .356 mark. He’s tied for fourth in RBI and leads the league in steals. Acuna was ranked the #5 prospect in the Braves organization by Call to the Pen’s Benjamin Chase. Baseball America had him #6 on their organization top 10 list. Acuna is likely to be a top-100 prospect heading into the 2017 season.

Acuna spent most of the 2016 season with the Class A Rome Braves of the South Atlantic League. He hit .311/.387/.432, with 27 runs scored and 14 stolen bases in 40 games. That’s an impressive showing for an 18-year-old in a league where the average age is 21. Including his statistics from the Rookie League, where he played as a 17-year-old in 2015, Acuna has hit .287/.385/.434 in 97 minor league games.

Josh Altmann is another big league prospect who has been hitting well down under. He’s tied with Acuna for the league lead in hits in the first half of the season. Altmann is in the Texas Rangers organization. The 21-year-old played most of the 2016 season with the Hickory Crawdads in the South Atlantic League. He hit .260/.349/.427 in 71 games.

Miami Marlins outfield prospect Stone Garrett is also on the Team World roster. Garrett had a strong 2015 season with the Batavia Muckdogs of the Short-Season A New York-Penn League when he hit .297/.352/.581 in 58 games. He didn’t repeat that success in 2016 upon a promotion to the Greensboro Grasshoppers of the Class A South Atlantic League. Garrett hit just .213/.265/.371 and struck out 71 times in 212 plate appearances (33.5%).

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One caveat with Garrett last year was a mid-season injury. Before the injury, he hit .244/.303/.450. When he returned from the DL, he hit .151/.205/.205. The injury was a bizarre one. Garrett suffered a knife wound to his right hand. Team president Michael Hill described it as a “prank gone bad” by teammate Josh Naylor, but Garrett’s management agency said Garrett “was not a willing participant” in the prank and that “the injury was not a result of horseplay of any kind.” Leave it to the Marlins to have this kind of controversy.

Even with the disappointing 2016 season, Garrett is the #9 prospect for the Marlins according to Baseball America. Call to the Pen’s Benjamin Chase has him ranked #7 on the team’s top 10. In 20 games in the ABL this winter with the Sydney Blue Sox, Garrett is hitting .324/.370/.473, with two home runs and four stolen bases.

Acuna, Altmann, and Garrett are three of the more prominent prospects playing in the ABL All-Star Game, but there are plenty of other players participating who currently play in minor league organizations in the U.S. The Minnesota Twins lead the way with seven players from their organization on ABL All-Star game rosters. The Colorado Rockies have the next-most, with three.

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The Australian Baseball League All-Star Game will take place on Thursday, December 22 and will be shown on the MLB Network at 3:30 am ET. If you’re a baseball fan and a night owl, this is your chance to watch real, live baseball being played in the middle of a cold, dark winter.

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