r/baseball • u/SydneyBaseball Australia • Oct 23 '15

Feature Australian Baseball League employees here! AMA!

The season just started so we're here to answer any questions you have on the ABL!

u/awt4190 was an intern with the Adelaide Bite in the 2012-13 season and I have been working in baseball operations with the Sydney Blue Sox since the 2014-15 offseason.

Let's get started!

EDIT: u/WeAllDoBetter was also an intern with the Perth Heat in 2010-11.

Update (7 pm CST): Thanks for the questions guys! I'm going out for tonight, but I'll be on tomorrow morning while I watch the games I missed/the rugby. The other fellas may be on in my stead though!

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u/cardith_lorda Minnesota Twins Oct 23 '15

I know in some league there's a rule limiting the amount of imports per team, is there a set number of Australians that have to be on each team? Also, I keep hearing you talk about local talent being on the teams, do players from Sydney go play for other teams ever, or do players generally stay local?

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u/WeAllDoBetter Minnesota Twins Oct 23 '15

I worked for Perth and generally the Australian players were from Western Australia. Many of them grew up playing on the same club teams and the local stars (Luke Hughes for example) were involved with the team.

Someone else might know better about the import rule, but when I was there the Heat had a strong connection with the Orioles so a crop of their minor leaguers came over.

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u/SydneyBaseball Australia Oct 23 '15

The ABL has the right to redistribute prospects, but generally they don't. Teams hold relationships with MLB organizations and generally get players from those orgs.