The World Baseball Classic Thread

[GnatsFan]

Wow' date=' I get negative rep for posting a link to watch WBC.[/quote']

Did they say why they gave you negative rep?

Some people just throw a hissy fit regarding posting stream links [for legal/moral reasons]... that might have been the case.

[O's are Legends]

Did they say why they gave you negative rep?

Some people just throw a hissy fit regarding posting stream links [for legal/moral reasons]... that might have been the case.

Not at all, left no comment. There are a lot bigger problems out there than video links so I'm not upset anymore; was just shocked. At least there were a good amount of people who used the links and were thankful. Peace

Good one between Japan and Cuba. I'm ready for opening day.

[NewOrioleWork]

This was so cool I had to post it.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090318&content_id=4012816&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

Jays take chance on Classic star Boyd

Netherlands closer opened eyes with tournament performance

By Jordan Bastian / MLB.com

CLEARWATER, Fla. -- The Blue Jays are taking a chance on one of the stars of this year's World Baseball Classic. On Wednesday, Toronto inked pitcher Leon Boyd to a Minor League contract, and he will report to the club's Minor League camp.

Boyd, 25, served as a reliever for The Netherlands in this spring's Classic, helping the country stun the Dominican Republic twice in the opening round to advance. In four games for The Netherlands, which was eliminated in the second round, the right-hander went 1-0 with a 2.25 ERA, striking out four and issuing three walks in four innings.

The 6-foot-5, 209-pound Boyd -- born in Vancouver, British Columbia -- was eligible to play for The Netherlands because his mother was born in Holland. With the Dutch national team, Boyd has played in multiple events, including the 2006 Intercontinental Cup, the '07 European Championship, the '07 World Port Tournament, the '07 Baseball World Cup, the '08 European Cup and the '08 Summer Olympics.

Boyd made his debut with Neptunus in Hoofdklasse in The Netherlands in 2007, posting a 9-0 record with a 1.22 ERA and 61 strikeouts over 66 2/3 innings. Boyd was a finalist for the league's Pitcher of the Year Award that season. After stints with three colleges, Boyd pitched for the Hoboken Pioneers in Belgium in 2006 and went 11-1 with a 0.84 ERA and 156 strikeouts over 96 innings.

Heh. Think of all the scouts who are encouraging their GMs to make the posting fee for Iwakuma right about now. The World Baseball Tryouts is more like it.

[isestrex]

USA team needs an OF, a 1B/3B and a RP to bolster their roster for the semi-finals.

Anyone think there's any chance Markakis or Huff is called upon?

[NewOrioleWork]

And the Americans continue to sort of care, but not really.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/baseball/bal-orioles319,0,1080857.story

Orioles ask Guthrie to leave WBC, rejoin team

RHP summoned back to camp; O's want him to focus on getting ready for season; Kranitz: 'He needs to be here and he needs to pitch'

Sigh. So much for that "team chemistry" stuff; might as well just call in some more replacement mercs to fill out the bench, be done with it, and then try to form a long term, coherent plan for an actual honest-to-God National Team aimed toward 2013 that could respectfully compete and take the game seriously. The WBC won't take off until Americans give a damn, period, because right now we're the only ones who don't...

[GnatsFan]

USA team needs an OF, a 1B/3B and a RP to bolster their roster for the semi-finals.

Anyone think there's any chance Markakis or Huff is called upon?

Think you need to be on the provisional roster to be eligible. Since the only other 1B is Derek Lee (injured)... seems like we are stuck with Dunn.

3B could be Longoria.

Ryan Braun sounds like he'll be ready to go, but Markakis would have been cool just to get some respect/recognition.

[GnatsFan]

WBC: The Stark Plan

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/worldclassic2009/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&id=3999459

Summary (he had some more outlandish suggestions like playing in October inbetween the LCS and World series, but I won't list them here):

THE STARK PLAN

Here's how we'd streamline this event if I were in charge:

Stage one: I'd take the eight teams that lost in the first round this year and lump them into a dramatic play-in round, consisting of two four-team round robins. Only the two winners would advance. Everybody else would go home and figure out where on their cable dial to find the MLB Network. I'd vote for holding that qualifying round right after the season, but I'm flexible. Want to play it in October? November? February? March? Whatever works best for all concerned. Doesn't matter to me.

Stage two: OK, now we have 10 teams left. Rather than yank their players out of spring training for weeks, The Stark Plan interrupts the spring festivities for only one week. We'd use that week to play two five-team round robins to get down to a Final Four.

Stage three: The Grand Finale -- So when would we decide the baseball champion of the world? In July, the best time of all. I'd bring the last four teams to the site of the All-Star Game. Then we'd have the greatest week of baseball ever. It would look like this:

• Home Run Derby on Monday.

• All-Star Game on Tuesday.

• WBC semifinals on Wednesday.

• WBC finals on Thursday.

Maybe its just me, but I like it the way it is. I wouldn't want to break the tournament and continue it 5 months later when the interest and intensity has faded. I don't even think that would entice the best US to compete either as coaches don't even want their players playing in the All-Star game let alone some irrelevant tourney when they could be resting for the 2nd half push. Either play the WBC during Winter Ball or sacrifice one of every four Spring Training years and play it in March; if the rest of the league is anything like the Oriole's the coverage is too sh*tty to warrant more interest than 15 minutes a day anyways.

As for the need of American fans to back the WBC... does it really matter? Baseball fans will tune in... NCAA fans won't... pretty simple. It's more a spectacle for the rest of the world to showcase their skills and promote the game abroad rather than some "USA!! USA!!" pride event.

[RShack]

WBC: The Stark Plan

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/worldclassic2009/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&id=3999459

That's the worst plan I ever heard.

If you were *trying* to come up with a bad plan, it'd be hard to out-bad that one.

[GnatsFan]

That's the worst plan I ever heard.

If you were *trying* to come up with a bad plan, it'd be hard to out-bad that one.

I'm still scratching my head trying to comprehend his claims,

I can fix pretty much everything that's wrong with the WBC, as currently constituted. And I can even guarantee, with 100-percent assurance, that it will work.

How do I know? Because I've run it past dozens of people this spring -- players, coaches, managers, general managers, front-office people, fans and even a couple of waiters who made the mistake of striking up a conversation with me.

They all love it. Every one of them.

That's a more bold claim then ShamWow!

P.S. Anyone here own a ShamWow?

[PrivateO]

Why would you break up the tournament into 2 parts,let alone 5 months apart? That's just stupid, I'm sorry. There would be no intensity, emotion, or pride sweeping through the WBC if this was the plan.

I'd much rather keep it the way it is than switch to Stark's plan.

[RShack]

I'm still scratching my head trying to comprehend his claims,

That's a more bold claim then ShamWow!

P.S. Anyone here own a ShamWow?

I think he just flat-out made up that part.

[Migrant Redbird]

My proposal would be to kick the WBC off in November, right after the World Series.

Unfortunately, that would walk all over the Caribbean winter leagues, which typically begin their baseball seasons in late October, culminating with the Caribbean Series in January. However, since the WBC would only be contested once every 4 years, the impact to the Caribbean winter leagues would be minimized. They could either defer the start of their season and play a truncated schedule, or they could play a normal schedule with their WBC players joining their teams once the WBC was completed.

The WBC shouldn't affect the Arizona Fall League too much. As a development league, it could be populated by players who weren't on any of the WBC rosters. However, that might rule out Phoenix as a potential WBC game site.

I would kick off WBC training camps within a couple days after the regular MLB season ends, with WBC players from MLB post season teams reporting to their training camps as soon as their teams get eliminated from the post season. In order to keep MLB players from getting rusty, WBC teams could play intra squad games or exhibition games among each other until the WBC tournament began, ideally within 2-3 days after World Series game 7 was scheduled. If bad weather forced an extension of the World Series, the beginning of the WBC would be postponed on a day-by-day basis, to begin 1 day after the Series concluded.

I would eliminate the division of the WBC series into rounds, playing it instead as a standard double elimination tournament. A 16-team double elimination tournament could be played in 9-10 days. Teams which remain in the winners bracket would always have a day off between games. A team which lost its first game and came all the way back through the losers bracket would end up playing 8 games in 10 days.

Day 1, Friday: 1st round, games 1 through 8

Day 2, Saturday: 1st losers round, games 9-12

Day 3, Sunday: 2nd round, games 13-16

Day 4, Monday: 2nd losers round, games 17-20

Day 5, Tuesday: 3rd round, games 21-24

Day 6, Wednesday: 4th losers round, games 25, 26

Day 7, Thursday: 4th winners round & 5th losers round, games 27, 28

Day 8, Friday: 6th losers round, game 29

Day 9, Saturday: "Unification round, game 30

Day 10, Sunday: Game 31 if necessary (if game 30 loser is from winners bracket)

In this way, the WBC could be over by mid-November, allowing the Caribbean winter leagues to begin a truncated schedule. The season for WBC players from the World Series teams would be extended by a couple weeks -- not that much different from the exhibition games which World Champion teams used to play in Japan after the series was over, aside from the intensity.

In the off years between WBC tournaments, the 4 teams which were eliminated in the first losers round would compete in qualifying tournaments with teams from other countries to see which ones would play in the next WBC. However, the qualifying tournaments would also potentially impact the Caribbean winter league schedules. To reduce length, the qualifying tournaments could be single elimination, allowing them to be completed in as little as 2-3 days.

The biggest issue which I see would be for free agent players, who would lose part of the time they now have for negotiations and who would be at risk of career ending injuries.

If MLB would also adopt my proposal to pay all players according to a compensation formula, with that pay coming from a common fund into which each team had contributed a percentage of revenues, they could also establish a "self-insurance" structure in which injured players would be compensated based upon past performance, regardless of whether the injuries occurred during the MLB season or during WBC games.

The money which the owners would save on contract insurance and the money which players now give their agents could all end up in the players' pockets under my proposal to pay players from a common fund.

[GnatsFan]

Right now we're the only major nation in this thing not taking it seriously

Coaches - <-- Right here... This is the problem. Davey Johnson is doing a very nonchalant job. I think the players care greatly, but Davey is flubbing it up and making team USA look bad. Sure, I guess one could point to the, "OMG I have a paper cut I can't play now" thing, but all nations with million $$$ players appear to be afflicted by that (Pujols, Johan Santana, A'Rod, et al.). Don't think this will ever change.

A US team without Lincecum, Sabathia, Papelbon, Halladay, Tex, etc. is not the best the US can offer when competing with the world, which is sort of insulting to the rest of the world when everyone else sends their best.

Oswalt + Peavy are elite starters aren't they? The team really only needs two or three for a tournament like this.

I can understand the bullpen though as our bullpen does seemed to be pieced together a little (Latroy Hawkins? :rofl:).

But, even back to the position players.

2B - Pedroia (MVP) / Brian Roberts (top notch)

SS - Jimmy Rollins (MVP) (best shortstop in league?)

3B - David Wright (one of best 3B in league)/ Chipper Jones (batted .364 last year)

1B - Youk (#'s comparable to Tex)

LF - Braun is pretty darn good.

RF - Dunn is pretty darn good (been one of the best players on team USA)

C - McCann is a great catcher and this Ianneta cat seems to be the real deal.

CF - Curtis Granderson is a great great underrated ballplayer.

UTIL - Derosa (pretty darn good Utility player)

I mean we are sending pretty top notch talent to this thing... there isn't really much I can complain about with regards to the starters or all position players.

Its obvious the fans aren't showing up [makes it look like US doesn't care], but that might be a Miami thing. Wonder what the US TV ratings are this go around? I can't be the only one watching. Why we entrusted Miami fans to represent USA baseball is beyond me ... I'm assuming it was more for the Latin fans that live in the area to see Puerto Rico/D.R./Venezula teams. In that sense [empty apathetic looking stadium] its incredibly embarrassing... I'm really hoping LA fans show up and sell out the stadium... if not then I guess we really don't care.

[GnatsFan]

My proposal would be...

Uh.... that's the best damn proposal I've ever heard. :thumbsup1: Seriously, I'd take that in a heartbeat. You should send it to MLB's WBC committee or something

The standard double elimination bracket would eliminate the meaningless "seeding" game that goes on now *snore* and as you mentioned the elimination of the tourney into rounds (every game now means something).

And I suppose the initial bracket seeding could be random or perhaps based off of World Rankings kinda like how the NCAA Basketball tourney is set up. Very low ranking teams (Netherlands, South Africa, etc) would get to participate, but we wouldn't have to worry about powerhouses knocking each other out of the tourney early and it would encourage lower teams to improve their baseball programs/International ranking. And under this system more teams could easily be added to the tournament in the future :scratchchinhmm:.

[GnatsFan]

The biggest issue which I see would be...

Travel? If yah wanted to hold some games in Japan and some in Puerto Rico and some in Canada and some in US then the Winners/Losers from different parts of the bracket would be in different parts of the World...? :scratchchinhmm:

You'd really have to hold the entire tournament at one site. Like 2006 in Carribean, four years later Japan gets it, four years later USA gets it?