The World Baseball Classic Thread

[DrungoHazewood]

Ha me neither.

Last night, someone on ESPNEWS was interviewing a guy from the Netherlands embassy. Obviously most of the Netherlands team is made up of the Arubans. The ESPN guy asked how big baseball was back in his home country.

The guy's response: "As big as soccer is in America".

Well the Orioles better be signing several scouts to go to the Netherlands, post-haste.

DC United draws as many fans as the Caps did pre-Ovechkin, the US team regularly has games that draw 40k or 50k, and there are a dozen or more Americans playing in the English Premier League. Probably three or four dozen Americans in high level leagues around the world. Not to mention the fact that soccer is the most popular participant sport among kids today.

I don't know how popular baseball actually is in the Netherlands, but several teams play in stadiums that look like A ball parks, and have capacities of 2k-6k. The Hoofdklasse plays a 42-game schedule, plus some of the teams play in various European cup matches and championships. Googling around a little it looks like some of their week-long tournaments regularly sell out 3000-5000 seat stadiums.

[NewOrioleWork]

Just some perspective for ratings.

http://www.bizofbaseball.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3071:espn-sees-hot-ratings-for-start-of-world-baseball-classic&catid=57:television&Itemid=122

ESPN’s multimedia coverage of the 2009 World Baseball Classic is off to a strong start, with first-round game coverage on ESPN (four telecasts) averaging a 1.3 rating (up 44 percent), 1,300,000 households (up 57 percent) and 1,745,000 viewers (up 88 percent). At this point in 2006, ESPN’s World Baseball Classic games averaged a 0.9 rating, 829,000 households and 930,000 viewers (two telecasts).

Team USA’s Sunday night (March 8) game against Venezuela posted 1,943,000 households and 2,645,000 viewers to become the most-viewed World Baseball Classic telecast ever. The corresponding 2.0 rating matched ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball average rating for 2008. The 2.0 rating was the second highest-rated World Baseball Classic game ever, trailing only a 2.1 rating for a second-round game between Team USA and Mexico in 2006.

The World Baseball Classic has also led to impressive audience growth for ESPN Deportes and ESPN360.com.

ESPN Deportes

* Cuba vs. Australia on Tuesday, March 10, delivered a 3.3 rating to become the network’s highest-rated non-soccer event ever (previously, the Mexico/Venezuela Caribbean World Series game, Feb. 6, 2009, posted a 2.2 rating);

* The six highest-rated non-soccer events on ESPN Deportes are all World Baseball Classic games;

* Tuesday, March 10, was ESPN Deportes’ most-viewed day ever, delivering 71,000 Hispanic household impressions (the previous high was June 29, 2008, the day of the Euro 2008 final, with 63,000 Hispanic household impressions).

* Live World Baseball Classic games are averaging a 1.5 rating, 65,000 households and 89,000 viewers.

ESPNdeportes.com

* The World Baseball Classic helped drive ESPNdeportes.com to its biggest traffic day ever (Wednesday, March 11), with more than 9.6 million minutes spent and nearly 5.6 million page views.

ESPN360.com

* USA vs. Canada (Saturday, March 7) was the most-viewed event of the day;

* Fans have watched an average of 41 minutes per stream for World Baseball Classic games.

ESPN.com

* There have been 1.9 million views of World Baseball Classic-related video.

Very good numbers overall. If the WBC can keep this up, it'll be very difficult to consider it a failure. This just once again makes me think that if Americans gave a damn, sent their best players, and didn't hold other teams' good players from going that this thing would really blow up.

Also, why is the US game only on Deportes? (And MLBN I guess). That just leaves me high and dry. Any chance they'll do a simulcast on ESPN 2 or something?

[NewMarketSean]

Just some perspective for ratings.

http://www.bizofbaseball.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3071:espn-sees-hot-ratings-for-start-of-world-baseball-classic&catid=57:television&Itemid=122

Very good numbers overall. If the WBC can keep this up, it'll be very difficult to consider it a failure. This just once again makes me think that if Americans gave a damn, sent their best players, and didn't hold other teams' good players from going that this thing would really blow up.

Also, why is the US game only on Deportes? (And MLBN I guess). That just leaves me high and dry. Any chance they'll do a simulcast on ESPN 2 or something?

Once it gains momentum, over the next 1 or 2 times its played, I think all MLB players will be fighting to make the teams of their respective countries. So far this WBC has been great so it's only getting bigger.

[Peace21]

Well the Orioles better be signing several scouts to go to the Netherlands, post-haste.

DC United draws as many fans as the Caps did pre-Ovechkin, the US team regularly has games that draw 40k or 50k, and there are a dozen or more Americans playing in the English Premier League. Probably three or four dozen Americans in high level leagues around the world. Not to mention the fact that soccer is the most popular participant sport among kids today.

I don't know how popular baseball actually is in the Netherlands, but several teams play in stadiums that look like A ball parks, and have capacities of 2k-6k. The Hoofdklasse plays a 42-game schedule, plus some of the teams play in various European cup matches and championships. Googling around a little it looks like some of their week-long tournaments regularly sell out 3000-5000 seat stadiums.

Im not a scout but I go to Aruba once a year for vacation and that place is loaded with ball fields.

[NewMarketSean]

Paul Bart: Mall Cop was number 1 for like 3 weeks. That does not make it a good movie.

Just because 5 billion people like soccer does not make it a good sport.

Ba5eball RuLeZ!!!!!!!1111

Take that Drungo!

[GnatsFan]

Sidney Ponson is pitching pretty well today versus a loaded Venezuelan lineup. Lots of movement on his pitches.

(Its sad, but if we signed him I bet he'd be a lock as our #3 starter for 2009 and possibly outperform Koji)

[HotTubMan]

Sidney Ponson is pitching pretty well today versus a loaded Venezuelan lineup. Lots of movement on his pitches.

(Its sad, but if we signed him I bet he'd be a lock as our #3 starter for 2009 and possibly outperform Koji)

There could be a team in MLB that gets a late injury or they're afraid to go with one of their young guns that could give Ponson a shot. He seems to be in better shape then in normal springs.

It's funny how a guy that needs a job gets in better shape then the guy the team invests it's money in does. Referring to the same guy of course:rolleyestf:.

[HotTubMan]

P.S. I'll take Koji over Ponson on anyday of the week. Period.

[mweb]

Exhibit A of why Dunn should play DH.

[NewOrioleWork]

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AnP49Y6yb49bk_JlnADHGHo5nYcB?slug=jp-useloses031409&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Team USA makes a mockery of WBC mission

By Jeff Passan, Yahoo! Sports 1 hour, 12 minutes ago

Yahoo! Sports

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – The World Baseball Classic is a farce. There’s no other way to put it. As much great baseball as it showcases, and as much as it means to other countries, until the United States starts treating the games as something more than exhibitions, the American public will continue to ignore it, and rightfully so.

This has little to do with the outcome of Team USA’s game Saturday night against Puerto Rico, an 11-1 mercy killing. The WBC invoked its 10-run slaughter rule in the seventh inning. However embarrassing, it happens. Puerto Rico played well. The U.S. didn’t.

What’s inconceivable and inexplicable and downright insulting to anyone who wants the WBC to succeed was Team USA manager Davey Johnson’s explanation of why he continued to let his starting pitcher, Jake Peavy, rot away any chance for a win with pitch after ugly pitch that the Puerto Ricans sprayed to every corner of Dolphin Stadium.

“Just basically let him get a little more work,” Johnson said.

Really.

OK, just to go over this one time: The WBC bills itself as a tournament to determine the world’s best team and spread the game’s allure (and, yeah, maybe fatten Major League Baseball’s wallet). It expects fans to take such notions seriously. They do, even though a double-pronged reticence within MLB – players and management alike – prevents many of the best players in the world from participating. Still, the games in the first round win support for their intensity and quality, especially this early in spring. And how does the manager for the most visible team, the one with the most major league stars, repay such commitment from those who bought tickets and watched on TV and sponsored the event figuring it more than a glorified spring training game?

He makes sure Jake Peavy hits a pitch count.

Fifty-two, by the way.

That it followed manifold other mistakes makes Johnson resemble his predecessor, Buck Martinez, who fumbled and bumbled as the United States bombed out of the first WBC.

By the time Johnson summoned Joel Hanrahan to warm up in the bullpen, Puerto Rico led, 4-0, and had runners on second and third base. After the Puerto Ricans crossed their fifth run, Johnson still played with the infield back and allowed a 6-0 deficit, which showed an ignorance as to how the tournament’s emphasis on deep bullpens neuters the chances of big comebacks or revealed Johnson’s true feelings about Puerto Rico starter Javier Vazquez’s big-game prowess.

Actually, Vazquez pitched well. Of course, Team USA’s slipshod coaching helped his cause. With Adam Dunn on second base and Puerto Rico ahead, 7-1, Ryan Braun singled up the middle. Carlos Beltran kicked the ball in center field. A tortoise could have scored – except that the third-base coach was Mike Schmidt.

He stopped Dunn as Beltran approached the ball, then yanked his arms toward home when he realized his mistake. Fans along the third-base dugout – among the few of the 30,595 in attendance with a rooting interest in the U.S. – razzed Schmidt about the decision. He defended himself. Schmidt held up seven fingers, then one, to remind them of the score. And then he touched to his right biceps, to indicate that Beltran has one of the most accurate throwing arms in the game.

And finally Schmidt pointed to himself, then the ground, held up a zero sign, and, man, would he ever be good at charades, because it looked like he said he had no business being here.

Maybe he didn’t do that last part.

Look, Schmidt is a Hall of Famer, probably the best third baseman ever. That does not qualify him to coach third base for Team USA, or at least a team that wants to put itself in the best position to win.

Someone from Team USA – Johnson, Schmidt, another coach, whoever – should have reminded the players that another run in the seventh inning meant a mercy loss. Felipe Lopez doubled to make it 10-1, and with Mike Aviles up, the United States did nothing. The outfield didn’t move in, and Johnson didn’t order an intentional walk for a force play, and it may have been moot, but no one on the bench bothered to act like it mattered.

Aviles flared a single to right field. Dunn ran to retrieve the ball. Second baseman Mark DeRosa ran toward him to cut off the throw. Neither realized the game had ended, nor did catcher Brian McCann.

“It didn’t register in my mind that it was even a possibility until I turned around and saw their entire team at first base,” DeRosa said.

There, Puerto Rico celebrated. Not only had it sent Team USA into a do-or-die game Sunday against the Netherlands, it emasculated the tournament favorite, which previously dropped the final game of its pool to Venezuela.

“We lost,” Derek Jeter said. “You’ve got to get over the embarrassment.”

Not just to Team USA. To all of the WBC.

Its second pool kicks off play Sunday in San Diego with a rematch of the 2006 final, Cuba and Japan. If Cuba’s starting pitcher struggles, manager Higinio Velez will have no qualms about yanking him in the first inning. He did so in the first championship game, pulling Ormari Romero after 23 pitches and one out.

That’s the urgency this tournament demands: caring more about the team’s well-being than the individual’s. Let Peavy throw his pitches in the bullpen. The WBC deserves better than Johnson’s cockamamie excuse.

Because with a tweak here and there, and the commitment of everyone involved to building a sustainable event, the WBC will succeed. Fans will recognize it and appreciate it and flock to it. A farce of the past, a force for the future.

[HotTubMan]

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AnP49Y6yb49bk_JlnADHGHo5nYcB?slug=jp-useloses031409&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

A very well written an accurate article.

I think I care more about the tournament then half the players.

Brian Roberts is taking Pedroia's spot and should play second base and lead off for team USA.

Rollins should bat second and play short over Jeter. This give us a much better lineup. I would rather see either Dunn DH or let Jeter DH to get his bat in the lineup. So far, Chipper Jones has looked awful.

Just to recognize the importance from other clubs, team Cuba had a left handed and right handed reliever warming after a lead off hit in Game 5 against Mexico.

You gotta love that.

Fortunately we are playing the Netherlands and I believe they were done and happy just to make it to this round. They do leave their hearts on the field each game so you have to give them credit.

It's time to take this serious or we'll be watching from the outside wondering what went wrong, again.

[GnatsFan]

So far, Chipper Jones has looked awful.

Incredibly.

McCann at catcher

Ianetta at DH.

:scratchchinhmm:

[Lester Freamon]

Great pitching matchup tonight. Cuba's Chapman versus Matsuzaka. That being said, would have been incredible if it had been Darvish instead of Matsuzaka.

[Lester Freamon]

Man, this Chapman chap is quite animated. I'm loving this! Pretty nasty stuff too.

[Lester Freamon]

Cuba with the quick hook. Japan did a good job of working the count on Chapman. Lets see if they can push one accross here...

as I write this a PB/WP gets Japan a run...