The qualifiers start next month. There are 16 teams battling for the last 4 spots in next year's tournament. 4 teams each group and it's double elimination. The 12 teams already qualified next year are: USA Mexico Puerto Rico Cuba Dominican Republic Venezuela Japan Korea China Australia Italy Netherlands Here's the schedule for the WBC qualifying
My favorite teams in the tournament are USA, Philippines, and ABJ (Anyone but Japan). Please, someone or any team must stop the Japanese dynasty. They are the two-time defending champions but I don't think they can make a 3-peat, its not their year. The competition and talent is now better for all of these nations.
I like that they have added a qualifying round for the last four teams. It should be interesting to see which four teams come out of that. I'm guessing Canada will be one of those teams because they got a pretty soft qualifier with three teams with little to no baseball history or talent and they are probably the best team that didn't gain automatic qualification. Believe it or not, GB might have the second-best team in this qualifier even though they had no real national program until they started to prepare for the Olympic games. Baseball, of course, was removed from the games, but they continued to push the national baseball team. They even had a guy in the Future's Game during the All-Star break, which I'm guessing is a first for a European nation other than Italy and the Netherlands. I would think the same about Chinese Taipei, as they have a pretty rich baseball history, but New Zealand, an up and coming baseball nation, will be tough. The third qualifier is the one to watch in my mind. Panama, Nicaragua and Colombia all have their fair share of talent and no one team out of that group should run away from the others. The first group is hot garbage. The fact that they are playing a qualifier between South Africa, Israel, Spain and France in Florida should tell you something about the place baseball holds in these countries. South Africa has been in the first two WBC competitions basically just because the MLB wanted to have an African representative. Spain and France don't have any real baseball history or top-flight players to draw from. Israel doesn't really either, but they might be able to draw from Jewish-American players. There's even talk that Shawn Green will come out of retirement to play for Israel if they make it. Even though they're nothing to write home about, South Africa might be the favorite in this group. They have WBC and Olympic experience.
Joe Torre is the manager. They have not announced the official roster but they will after the World Series or during the offseason, sometime in the winter (December/January). USA is one of the favorites along with Japan and should reach the finals.
This game (and I assume others from this group) is being streamed live for free at worldbaseballclassic.com.
Mark Loretta is also a coach for Israel and Josh Zeid will be coming out of the bullpen for the team.
Based on what I just finished watching, I would say that Israel is the odds on favorite to come out of this group. Sure, South Africa might not be the best measuring stick, but Team Israel looked good. They have a ton of Jewish-American players that are playing in the minors here in the states, including one guy who is the #3 prospect in the Dodgers system, which puts them way ahead of the three other teams in their group. Their bullpen is what really sets them apart for me. They ran three or four guys out there tonight that were pumping fastballs in the low to mid 90s. Players from South Africa, France and Spain probably aren't used to consistently seeing pitchers with plus arms like that.
Alex Sogard (Corpus) represents the Czech Republic. Looking at their roster, he might be the only American-born player. Also, Albert Cartwright, the last man standing from that infamous draft, is on the roster of Great Britain. We'll probably see Wilton Lopez representing Nicaragua.
Congratulations to Spain. They have qualified to the WBC's main tournament by beating the heavy favorites Israel.http://web.worldbaseballclassic.com/2013/news/article.jsp?ymd=20120923&content_id=38912652 I think it's unfair that the WBC don't use the NCAA CWS format but Spain still deserves to advance. The two games between Spain and Israel were very close and competitive.
Sucks that the format worked against Israel. I still think that they were the best team in that group.
Also, as expected, Canada waltzed through their group. It wasn't even really competitive. This spot really should have been for Italy. Canada has the better talent and the richer baseball history, but Italy pulled an upset over the Canadians at the 2009 event, which dropped them down into the qualifier pool.
WBC Qualifying continues this week as the final two spots will be determined. In the Qualifier #3 bracket, it's Panama, Brazil, Colombia, and Nicaragua. They will start play tomorrow with Panama hosting Brazil in Game 1.The Qualifier #4 bracket features Chinese Taipei, New Zealand, Philippines, and Thailand. This will start late tonight with the first game between the Philippines against Thailand, who they have Johnny Damon on their team.
All the games in this tournament are streaming live and free on the website, http://www.worldbaseballclassic.com
Here are the groups for the main tournament in 2013: Group A (hosted in Fukuoka, Japan) Japan China Cuba Spain Group B (hosted in Taichung, Taiwan) (South) Korea Netherlands (Holland) Australia Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) Group C (hosted in San Juan, Puerto Rico) Puerto Rico Dominican Republic Venezuela Brazil Group D (hosted in Phoenix, Arizona) USA Mexico Italy Canada The 2nd round will be held at Tokyo Dome (Tokyo, Japan) and Marlins Park (Miami, Florida). The semifinals and championship will be at AT&T Park in San Francisco, California. All games, including the championship game, will be broadcast on MLB Network and streaming live online at http://worldbaseballclassic.com
I think Minute Maid Park would be interested to host one of the games in the World Baseball Classic tournament. I don't think Phoenix is a good place to draw attendance wise and will have trouble getting supporters traveling from other countries. Also, Brazil and Spain are making their 1st appearance in the WBC.
