World Baseball Classic Thread

[Willets Point]

Flash Gordon. Never saw it but in college some of my friends went around saying "Bring meeeeeee ... the bore worms!"

[MFS62]

Bingo!
Please report to the front desk and pick up your prize.

If they could quote that picture, you must have had interesting friends.
Later

[nymr83]

well, the 7 teams that i think most people would have picked to advance have done so along with mexico (who i thought were 50/50 with canada to be the 2nd team out of that pool.)
any baseball is good baseball at this point...

[Guest KC]

If anyone is interested, the USA vs. Japan in on ESPN2. The NYT's in-
ability to get the tv scheduling right for this tournament is mind-boggling.

They have it listed as being on tonight at 8?

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Nymr83 wrote: any baseball is good baseball at this point...

which is why it makes sense to market at the time of year they're putting it at. I think you hardcore fans would watch a deathmatch between the second grader boys and the second grade girls now, you're so hard-up for a baseball game.

[Guest Rotblatt]

Bret Sabermetric wrote: ="Nymr83"]any baseball is good baseball at this point... which is why it makes sense to market at the time of year they're putting it at. I think you hardcore fans would watch a deathmatch between the second grader boys and the second grade girls now, you're so hard-up for a baseball game.

Hey, Bret, watch the games first, THEN judge. Japan-USA was as good a game as I've ever seen. Well, at least games that didn't involve the Mets.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Rotblatt wrote: Hey, Bret, watch the games first, THEN judge.

Fair enough.

I find it hard to get excited about games where the most important quality for most of you is the avoidance of Mets injuries. (Or the preponderence of Yankee injuries.) I got to wonder if the players are holding something back and, if not, why not.

But I love the idea of the games. In a lot of ways, I fantasize that WBC baseball will someday replace MLB. It restores something that's lacking for well over a century--the concept of local pride. The players are from the places on their uniforms (for the most part) and there's a real bond between the players and the places they play for. That's wonderful, and I like to see that. I just wish they could play balls-to-the-wall. This pitch-limit, mercy rule, no injuries stuff retards my interest.

Or maybe my interest is just retarded to begin with.






OE: fix'd coding
OE2: fix'd coding correctly

[Guest holychicken]

Bret,

You have to realize that at least a couple of those concessions (well, at least the pitch count limit) were put in place to get a majority of the MLB owners on board.

To be honest, and I guess I am in a minority here, but I definitely am behind the WBC. So far, it has been pretty enjoyable. . . as you have said, the players show more passion than you see a lot of the time and the fact that it is pretty much ALL playoffs gives each game so much meaning.

The Japan US game that was just on was really exciting. Sure, there were a few bad calls. . . but it wouldn't be baseball without bad calls. And, if it didn't have bad calls, what would we get worked up over?

[Guest Rotblatt]

Watanabe looks like the likely starter for Japan tomorrow. Watanabe went 4.2 innings against Korea and allowed only 3 hits, K'ing 1, but he also hit 3 batsmen.

Korea looks to counter with Sunny Kim, who got battered but not broken by Japan in 3 innings against Japan, allowing 7 hits and 2 earned runs, striking out 1.

This should be a mismatch of starting pitchers in Japan's favor, but we'll see how it plays out.

Should be a fun game.

[metsmarathon]

edit... avi stopped by.

post contents moved to be more appropriate thread bitching about the lack of availability of WBC televisings. carry on.

[HahnSolo]

I'm wondering if this tournament would not have been better suited with fewer teams and maybe a double elimination format (as I see others have suggested).

For ex., two pools of six teams rather than four pools of four. Get rid of the dead weight (sorry China, South Africa, and Italy), play double elimination in each pool, then have each pool's champ play a two out of three championship.

Then we don't have to worry about earned runs per innings played.

[Frayed Knot]

Except that I think in large part this tourney was concocted specifically with those lesser teams/countries in mind. THOSE are the places you're trying to pump-up baseball both as a source of talent and a consumer's market.
Yeah, China & China aren't going to be challenging their Asian neighbors for supremacy anytime soon, but it gives them something to shoot for. When the US made the Soccer World Cup draw (in the early '90s sometime) and then hosted it 4 years later (thus gaining an automatic bid) no one expected them to place highly either time, but it provided a valuable experience boost AND an attendance/interest boost that paid dividends later on. And now, a ranking that came out just this week in advance of this year's WC has the US squad ranked 5th in the world.

There are things they need to fix before trying this again, but I don't think becoming more exclusive is one of them.

[Benjamin Grimm]

The Italy team was a joke. I wasn't paying enough attention to South Africa or Netherlands to know whether I'd have a similar opinion about them.

I was surprised that it was hard to come up with 16 legitimate teams. I wonder if there are more Latin American countries where baseball is growing. Do they play in Nicaragua? Guatemala? Haiti?

[Willets Point]

I give a lot of credit to South Africa for putting a team of amateurs. They'll probably develop as a team and a fan base for being able to hang with Mexico and Canada. Italy probably hurt themselves by not playing any real Italians. The Netherlands are the strongest baseball nation in Europe and they even won a game against Panama. I was wondering what other nations might compete in a future WBC and looking at other international competitions (the Baseball World Cup & Olympics) the only other countries that come up are Nicaragua and Colombia. I guess Britain and Ireland might be able to send teams too but that's about it for the baseball world for now.

[nymr83]

I think the double-elimination is a must. I wouldn't cut teams out though and i'd even look into adding a "qualifying" tournament the previous november for newcomers plus those who didnt make it out of the 1st round in the previous tournament.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

Jim Caple's Thoughts On WBC Umpiring

1) He proposes that every WBC umpiring crew have at least one umpire that speaks the language of the non-English speaking manager; and

2) His imagined, translated exchange between Oh and Davidson is hysterical.

[Willets Point]

]The question is whether his ejection was due to faulty translation or superb translation.

Funny.

[Guest Rotblatt]

Nifty article about WBC follow-up by Tom Verducci from SI.

[Centerfield]

Akinori Otsuka The former Padres reliever, now with Texas, called San Diego closer Trevor Hoffman on Sunday morning and asked if he could use his signature Hell's Bells song if he had a chance to close the championship game. Hoffman gave his blessing, and Otsuka did him proud with a five-out save.

That's really cool. How funny is it that Team Japan uses AC/DC to close out their victory.

[Guest Rotblatt]

="Centerfield"]That's really cool. How funny is it that Team Japan uses AC/DC to close out their victory.

Well, AC/DC IS a little more menacing than Puffi Ami Yumi.

[Guest Edgy DC]

They should bring the Pink Lady.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Interview with Paul Archey, the MLB executive who helped "shape" the WBC.

Mets content: apparently the rules were that no more than ten players may be taken from any big-league organization. When more than ten were requested, the team asking for the most MLB players would be asked to throw one request back. He specifically mentions the Mets in this scenario.

[Guest Rotblatt]

Davenport with a little follow-up on his estimation of world talent from the mailbag at Baseball Prospectus:

]Rolling Some Cubans You wrote this article a year or so ago and I found it incredibly interesting at the time. As I was watching the Cubans play in the World Baseball Classic tournament I couldn't help but think back to this research and wanted to get your impressions. It's tough to imagine a Double-A team--say a Southern League All Star team--performing this well. Are we seeing a Cuban team that is significantly better than the average play in their league? Or is this performance in the WBC more due to getting hot at the right time and having a small sample size for us to examine? --S.B. There is a big difference between the American minor leagues and the national leagues of other countries. When I say that the talent level of the Cuban league is approximately that of short-season A ball, I am talking only about the average level of play. The standard deviation of the level of play is much tighter in American leagues than in other leagues--because the top players get promoted out. In Cuba, or Korea, or Japan, there is no higher league for promotion, so the players remain there and dominate. I think most of the players--the ones who actually played in the WBC--for Cuba (and Japan, and Korea) would be either in the majors or, at least, on their way up through AA if they had identical skills and ages and had grown up here. Osmani Urrutia is a very good player. However, the only reason he has hit .400 for four (five?) straight years in Cuba is because the average level of play is so low and his home park of Las Tunas has to have a park factor of at least 115. His translated line is sort of between Eric Chavez and Derek Jeter; same overall EqA, with BA and SLG between the two. Imagine one of them playing in Asheville--that's a 114 park in the low minors South Atlantic League. I don't think a .400 season would be at all remote for them. So, yes to one of your speculations; while the average player on a Cuban team may be comparable to the American low minors, the best ones are substantially better, because the best ones in America get promoted. Five years ago, Urrutia was playing in a Sally League equivalent and still is. Without promotion, the SAL All-Star team would feature the players who were there five years ago; just from 1999 (grabbing the 2000 Baseball America Almanac), the Sally league included Juan Pierre, Matt Holliday, Rafael Furcal, Jay Gibbons, Travis Hafner, which would be a more reasonable match for a Cuban All-Star team than a current SAL All-Star team. --Clay Davenport

[Frayed Knot]

What those who (wrongly) expected the Americans to dominate missed is that, while we probably have the best overall depth, plucking an A-S team from any of the other countries who have pro leagues (Japan, Korea, Cuba - or significant players in MLB: PR, DR, Venz) negates that depth as does the unpredictability of a short series.

It'll be interesting to see what happens if/when Cuban players are finally freed. There'll certainly be some quality players from there, but I'm not sure if anyone has a handle on what kind of [u:693a681ab5]quantity[/u:693a681ab5] they have who can play at an ML level.

[duan]

I think the wbc should be played in a two week window at the now "all-star" break.

The all star game's a joke and is basically an irritant in the season. The WBC has the potential to be *really* good.

You need the weaker teams in because that's how they get better - if you make it a closed club you simply take the fun out of it.

it'd be brilliant mid season - you only have to do it every two/four years too. That makes it a real treat.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Where does the Football Wrold Cup fall relative to most European leagues' seasons, Duan? Is the "integrity of the schedule" (keeping the season the same amount of games every year) important to them?

[duan]

The World Cup happens every four years.

The european championships happen every four years (the alternate even years to the WC)

These both happen in the summer after the club season is over and take about a month.

They're "Bigger then club football" (although there's ongoing complications with that as obviously clubs pay the players day to day salaries - though they do get bonuses for being part of national squads, generally worked out on a collective basis).

The club season runs from August to May, culminating at a European level with the Champions League final and domestically with either the "last day of the season" in leagues or the "FA" Cup Final.

Don't forget the size of the average top league is 20 teams (some are 18) which means 38 games and then the very top clubs (champions of the previous season plus up to 3 more depending on strength of the league) participate in the European Cup.

[Elster88]

Not that it bears on the conversation, but aren't the teams that compete in the European Championships the same club teams as usual?

It'd be like the Mets, Braves, etc. playing against Bobby V's team, etc. right?

[Guest Edgy DC]

No, the Euorpean Cup is for national teams from the European nations. (Will Israel now be eligible?)

There's also the European Team Cup that I think invites the top teams (the teams that have won championships) from each premiere league.

My question is because most teams are done with their schedule, they don't have to worry as much about their players injuring themselves in the national cause. A mid-season WBC would be fretful for a team tied for first sending their ace pticher off to pitch for somebody else for a few weeks.

[Elster88]

Is the Team Cup a yearly event?