EXL: Extraliga starts. Will someone beat Draci for the title?
Friday evening brings the opening of the new Extraliga season. Fans can look forward to a number of news, changes and unanswered questions. However, we all hope it will be an unforgettable season.
The start of the season, 12th of April, is unusual as is. If we don’t count the atypical Covid year 2020, we have to go way back to see such a late start of the season. It was in 2013 when the season started on 13th of April.
But this is not the only thing that is going to be repeated from the past. The 2024 season also brings the return of an old competition format, which was last used in 2016. We will see 8 teams play 35 games in the regular season. Only the playoffs will see a change, where top 4 teams play each other, while the rest will play against First League teams.
Factor Červenka
Martin Červenka is currently considered the best Czech-born baseball player and looking at his statistics shows why. It is little surprise that his move from Tempo to Hroši stirred the baseball waters in the country. His arrival rapidly increased the changes of Brno team for their first Extraliga title. Furthermore, Hroši also have names such as Petr Čech, Tomáš Říčný, Matěj Menšík, Vojtěch Menšík and many more. Opponent’s pitchers won’t get a time to rest against them, it would seem. Hroši also brought Toru Murata who has plenty of experience with NPB and MLB. Furthermore, he also showed he still knows how to pitch in last year’s Bundesliga. If Tomáš Ondra continues his performance from the previous year and John Hussey remains healthy, Hroši will be aiming further than being a part of Czech Series.
What about Draci?
But it is difficult to say whether it will be enough to get Hroši the title. Especially against the consistent Draci team, who also brought interesting signings. Yoervis Medina played 3 seasons in MLB and catch Alex Monsalve has plenty of experience in MiLB. Hurtado, who was unstoppable in the previous season, should also return. After a year in the Netherlands, Draci will also have Filip Čapka available. However, Draci will have to focus on Extraliga and the new Champions League, where they play 6 games, all in the middle of the week. Only time will tell whether this will play to his advantage or not.
Who will surprise?
Based on the signings in the winter, the two abovementioned teams are very likely to make it to the semifinals. The remaining six teams will be hot in battle for the remaining two spots. And it should be the closest we got to see in a while. It is possible we will see the smallest point differential between the third and the eighth team in the history of the competition.
Kotlářka Praha, who return to Extraliga after two years, and who are currently the only Prague team to win Extraliga title, may surprise you. It would be difficult to find anyone from 2015 Extraliga champions team there anymore, but the team has a lot of young prospects, who can only surprise as there won’t be much expected of them. Furthermore, duo Wesley Roemer and Angel Vilchez, who showed how important they were for the team, remained with them.
Evening games
Fans can look forward to more evening games. Especially Třebíč Nuclears will play majority of their home games under the evening lights. Vysočina team also moved some of their Saturday games to a later time. Fans can thus watch more games then it was till now.
Baseball Czech TV
Baseball Czech TV came with a huge change, as it’s turning into a paid service. For 1290 CZK you can watch all the games throughout the year, as well as the national team games, many games of Promotion and First League, and youth tournaments. Besides this, the company behind the streams also offers smartphone application, where fans can watch the games from anywhere, where internet is available.
