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It’s been a while baseball fans, how’s it going?
It is with great pleasure that I welcome you back to our regularly scheduled programming. We’re turning over the calendar to a new month and closing out the NDBA regular season in just a few short days. With another regular season nearly in the books, I wondered about what we learned over the summer about each club.
Did the Anchors or Cobras take their step forward? Could the Cannons and Alliance be showing their age? Have the Pioneers and Yellow Jackets changed along with their namesakes? Are the Expos even alive!?!?
Time to dust off those big block erasers and pull put your note pads, I’m taking the league back to school and handing out my annual letter grades to each team. Quiet now, class is in session.
We’ll begin with a few quick thoughts from around the NDBA.
FIVE MINI HEADLINES
- Representing in the OBAs – This is the biggest news out of the last couple of weeks: all seven teams from the NDBA are headed to the OBAs this season! The tournaments are set to take place on Labour Day weekend (Sept 1-4). Here’s how the divisions stack up:
AA: Fort Erie Cannons (Vaughan)
A: Beamsville Yellow Jackets, Niagara Falls Expos, Thorold Anchors (Niagara; Thorold)
B: Welland Pioneers, Merritton Alliance (Petrolia)
C: St. Catharines Cobras (Port Hope)
- Pioneers Founding Success in First Season – They’re tied for first place with the Beamsville Yellow Jackets in the standings and the roll the newly-dubbed Pioneers are on seems unstoppable. They began the month with a 6-5 loss to the Cannons before rattling off eight consecutive wins to close out July, it will hold up as the longest winning streak this season. Welland has outscored opponents at a 2:1 ratio over those nine games. Mark Jaroslawski has been their catalyst, collecting 21 hits in the over that span.
- Newcomers Aplenty – This is maybe a turned blind eye on my part, but how about the rookies in the NDBA this season? It’s tough to recall a better crop of new talent in the NDBA, you’ve got Jack Kemp and Taylor Anderson in Niagara Falls, the Kauer brothers in Welland, Cole Cote and Zach Decaire in Merritton are just a few of the names that have taken the league by storm this year and raised the bar for competition once again.
- NDBA Playoff Format – The league is welcoming back the bracket format with seven teams in the mix for the top bragging rights in the Niagara region. The top seed will receive a bye in the first round, with the #2 seed playing #7 seed, the #3 seed playing the #6 seed and the #4 seed taking on the #5 seed. The Pioneers and Yellow Jackets are still tied for top spot with two games remaining, Welland holds the tiebreaker as they took the season series three games to one.
- Stream Date Announcements – There’s just a few more games left to shake out with rain outs becoming a bit more prominent in the latter half of July. We’re bringing you two more confirmed stream dates with another to be announced on our social medias later in the week:
Aug. 3 – Welland Pioneers @ Thorold Anchors (Al McInnis retirement night) 7:30 p.m.
Aug. 5 – Merritton Alliance @ St. Catharines Cobras7:30 p.m.
TBD – Thorold Anchors @ St. Catharines CobrasTBD
NDBA REPORT CARDS
Every team is graded first and foremost on prior performance, or, how they managed their game last year and where they fell in the standings after 24 games. Second, their expectations going into this season needs to have been met for it to be considered a successful year. Teams in the lower echelon of the grading spectrum should be assumed to have missed those expectations.
Just like in school, we’ll proceed in alphabetical order:
Beamsville Yellow Jackets (15-7)
Picking up where they left off in 2022 was a taller task than the Yellow Jackets had in mind. The team went 3-3 in month of May, playing far below the standards that brought them to the championship last year. No matter, they’re now in the mix for the pennant. Now fully in their stride, Beamsville is primed to make a run in this playoff format. Their built to win a best-of-three series. As such, this team fully deserves an A.
Offense and defense get nearly full marks. They’ve far exceeded their run production from last season, while sacrificing a bit in the runs against department. Matt Holman has been an RBI machine, with a league-leading 33 in 21 games, while Dave Knaus, Tyler Rose and Tyler Wood round out a list of Jackets who have 20+ hits. Only the Welland Pioneers have more players in that category. On top of that, they’re still the elite of the elite on defense. Similarly, their pitching staff is a three-pronged tactical assault weapon, featuring Rose, Riley Grey and Alex Davy. The trio spearheads a group that boasts the league’s best team ERA (3.38) and house the top two strikeout leaders in the NDBA in Grey (56) and Davy (42) respectively.
Fort Erie Cannons (14-9)
The Cannons are rumbling and tumbling their way through the end of the regular season. Starting 8-1 out of the gate, you thought maybe this team was going to ride its own coattails back to the title. But it’s a long season. Like they so often do, the Cannons have expanded their bench in the latter half of the year and sputtered in the standings as a result. They still stand chin up, with a solid B effort on the year.
Offense earns a B+, they’re still the leaders in home runs (as they should be) and they’re still able to put up big innings, see 14-6 win over the Expos last week. Big names such as Nick Weglarz, Geordan Dennahower, Gary Moraes, Zach Fernandez and Spencer Edwards are carrying the load when they’re all in the lineup. Defense and pitching take a hit. Cannons are middle of the pack in runs against and team ERA but are ever so slightly above their runs against per game from last season. (6.39 in 2023 vs. 5.70 in 2022)
Merritton Alliance (10-12)
The Alliance took a bit of a step backwards this year. They brought out virtually the same group that brought them to a 15-7 record last season, with a few notable additions (see above). The trouble for Merritton was consistency, only Will Sagloski played 20+ games for the team this year. They did play much better in back half of July and can still salvage a .500 season if they win out in games against the Expos and Cobras. In this edition, they sit at the class average with a C+.
Offense was their strong suit once again this year. It took them a second to find their groove, but the likes of Dave Davidson, Adam Hope and Mark Fusco are beginning to get into their groove and have turned in some solid performances over the last 30 days. Defense and pitching rank middle of the pack. This is a strong infield on most nights, but the outfield is missing Matt Kerr in center field. Pitching has been good at times, the greatest example being Cam Mcknight’s last two starts; one a 6-0 complete game shutout of the Cannons and another, a 12-run debacle against the Pioneers. Merritton’s 5.20 team ERA is the highest mark in the NDBA, but that mark is racked up by a few bad spot starts. It’s been good enough to be shutdown at times.
Niagara Falls Expos (9-12-1)
The Expos did not have a flashy season by any standard, sitting a 9-12-1 at this point in the season. But they did maintain the status quo and that is exactly what they set out to do at the start of the year. They’ll want to forget the last month, which is when they accumulated much of their woes. Expos went 2-7 over the month of July and were outscored 55-32 over those nine games. Despite their record, this team looks to be slightly above the curve, we’ll award them a well-earned B.
Playing at full capacity, Niagara Falls boasts a tough one through nine lineup and their pitching staff, though missing a key player, still has a pair of aces that will be tough to deal with in a three-game set. Pitching was the Expos strong suit this year. Liam Jacques’ departure stung the team bad, but Dallas Smith and Jason Baldinelli are both in line to carry the bulk of the workload down the stretch. The focus shifts now to the defense, as they will be relied on to keep the games in check. Errors have cost the Expos in every game of their current six-game losing streak. Despite that, they’ve maintained their balanced attack and look scary if you put their best nine on a score sheet.
St. Catharines Cobras (6-14-1)
I’ll admit, when they pulled out back-to-back wins over the Pioneers back in late May, I thought it was going to be the Cobras year. Expectations aside, the Cobras did not manage to put together enough firepower to help propel them through those one-run ball games. It’s been tough sledding again this year for the #Cobros. They remain in the lower tier and get slapped with a D in this edition.
St. Catharines gets the first F of the episode with a worse mark than their squad from last year. In fact, their 3.57 runs per game serves as the lowest mark among any team in the NDBA by a significant margin. The astounding and redeeming factor, is the rotation’s ability to keep them in close ballgames. Cobras were involved in seven games this season that were decided by one run or less – most in the NDBA. Specifically, Matt Skubel has had an MVP season on the mound for the club. He’s allowed just 8 runs in 34 innings of work for a 1.65 ERA (1st among eligible pitchers). His 41 strikeouts are also good for third in the league. Skubel salvages what should be a considered a washed season for St. Catharines.
Thorold Anchors (7-15)
It’s been an emotional year for the Thorold Anchors to say the least. They’ve said goodbye to former coaches and players through various ceremonies and welcomed players old and new into the fold to put together a team that was thought to carry their OBA success into the 2023 regular season. For a minute… they had it. Anchors are another club that will want to wash away the end of June and the better portion of July. They stay put in this term, taking home a D to their parents.
Anchors strength lies in their offense, which has shone when it has been put to the test against tougher pitching. Rylie Gambell has taken a regular spot in the lineup in just his second season, leading the team in SLG at .538. While Kevin Hastie and Dylan Dempsey continue to do their thing, pacing the team with 17 hits a piece. Where the team takes a hit is perhaps in inexperience. They routinely field a younger squad and that can sometimes translate to inefficiencies on defense and on the mound. Even their ace, Kyle D’Angela has been shaken up at times, something we didn’t see from the shifty southpaw last season. It’s important to keep in mind that this team is still growing, they have time to work on their grades.
Welland Pioneers (15-7)
What a great season the first year, Welland Pioneers put together. They truly paved the way for success in light of a new chapter under the lights at Welland Stadium. A tad slow out of the gate, Welland emerged as one of the frontrunners around mid-June, when they knocked off the seemingly unbeatable Cannons in back-to-back games. It was a turning point. The Pioneers are currently in the middle of an eight-game winning streak. They have a formula right now, a winning one. A.
This is the premiere team on offense in the NDBA right now and deserves full marks. The key has to be a consistent lineup. You got Frank Barber at the top, Anderi, Lepp, Jaroslawski in the two, three and four with Scott Cole at five and Blake Kauer at six. Those six batters alone have racked up a combined 135 hits this year, 30 more than the entire St. Catharines Cobras team. They’ve also managed to inject some pitching in the form of Juan Cisnero and Spencer Kauer, who have been more than respectable in their limited outings. In all, the Pioneers are my pick as the team to beat in the playoffs, provided their big bats come to play.
