Category Archives: International

Who’s in/out/in-between of the World Baseball Classic as of 7:54 PM of Jan. 3, 2013

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Today’s news:

  • Miguel Montero of the Arizona Diamondbacks basically confirmed he was going to play for Venezuela in the WBC on Twitter. So into possibly/likely he goes.
  • The Cincinnati Enquirer‘s John Fay has some WBC tidbits in his latest news about the Cincinnati Reds. He repeats that Joey Votto will take part for Canada if healthy, that Brandon Phillips will be asked for Team USA, and that Johnny Cueto will likely take part. But he does have the new information that Jay Bruce will probably be asked to play for Team USA. Bruce, 25, is a two-time all-star and is one of the most overlooked outfielders in the National League, in my opinion. Since Fay doesn’t say either way that he has been invited, merely that he is “likely” to be invited, I’m placing him in the “under consideration” category.
  • A tweet from William Aish, who works for a ESPN Radio station in Santo Domingo, quotes the manager of the Leones del Escogido as saying that Adrian Beltre is more practicing with them to prepare for the WBC, not play for the Leones. I’m going to put Adrian Beltre in the possibly/likely category.
  • Adam Rubin of ESPN New York writes that David Wright is likely the only Met to be scheduled to play in the WBC. Considering that Johan Santana is the only player that immediately comes to mind who would probably good enough to even be invited (and he probably won’t be allowed by the Mets due to his injury), this isn’t too much of a surprise.

As usual, go after the jump for more.

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Wednesday Links: Mister Baseball

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I’ve featured links to a site that covers Japanese baseball, and a site about Korean baseball, so today, I’m putting up a link to a site on European baseball. It’s called “Mister Baseball“. It has nothing to do with that one movie about Tom Selleck playing in Japan, and instead covers all of the ups and downs of the various leagues in Europe, both the two professional ones in the Netherlands and Italy, as well as the smaller competitions elsewhere, while sometimes also giving some general baseball news.

You can find it above, or in the links section of this blog.

Who’s in/out/in-between of the World Baseball Classic as of 8:13 PM of Jan. 1, 2013

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Not much today:

As usual, check under the jump for the full list.

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WBC 2013 Projections: Dominican Republic Version 2.1

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It’s time for another round of projections for the Dominican Republic’s World Baseball Classic roster. Those that have already been confirmed fully by the World Baseball Classic organizers are italicized.

As usual, the rules I used in making this roster:

  • Any player coming off a major injury or who has a history of injuries is unlikely to participate. This is especially true for the pitchers.
  • Players that will be on new teams are less likely to participate, but shouldn’t be completely ignored, with the exception of pitchers.
  • Teams are made up of 28 players, of which 13 of them must be pitchers and two of them catchers.
  • The pitch count rules make relievers extremely important.

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2013 WBC Team USA projections Version 2.2

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It’s time for another round of WBC projections for Team USA! Like last time, players who have been absolutely super-confirmed to be playing are in italics. I note the changes from last time where applicable.

A refresher on my selection rules/assumptions:

  • Any player coming off a major injury or who has a history of injuries is unlikely to participate. This is especially true for the pitchers.
  • Players that will be on new teams are less likely to participate, but shouldn’t be completely ignored, with the exception of pitchers.
  • Teams are made up of 28 players, of which 13 of them must be pitchers and two of them catchers.
  • The pitch count rules make relievers extremely important.

Go after the jump for the projections:

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Who’s in/out/in-between of the World Baseball Classic as of 7:03 PM of Dec. 29, 2012

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The news tonight on people dropping in or out of the World Baseball Classic:

As always, go below the jump for the full list:

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Who’s in/out/in-between of the World Baseball Classic as of 9:43 AM of Dec. 29, 2012

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The latest news on participants in the WBC:

  • Martin Maldonado of the Brewers is like to play for Puerto Rico. So I’m putting him in as possibly/likely.
  • A rumor on an Orioles message board is that Adam Jones will play for Team USA. I found it because somebody in a reply linked to here. Yeah me. However, since even by the original poster’s admission there is no tweet, link or article, I’m not going to be putting him in the list. Just thought I should mention it, though, as it would make some sense if he was going to take part.

As usual, go below the jump for the full list:

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Who’s in/out/in-between of the World Baseball Classic as of 2:51 PM of Dec. 27, 2012

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The latest news on the WBC:

  • Jim Johnson has now been fully confirmed not to be playing in the Classic.
  • The latest update on the Korean roster looks like this.
  • Also, there are some reports I’ve found here and there that due to a feud between the Mexican Baseball Federation and the summer Mexican League (the LMB), the participation of some Mexican Leaguers is now in doubt- either they won’t have their contracts honored, or they won’t be covered in case of injury, or something. I’ll let you know more once I figure it out.

Go after the jump for the full list:

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Coming Soon: WBC Simulations on Out of the Park Baseball

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I’m a big fan of a game called Out Of The Park Baseball. It’s a baseball simulator, which can let you do almost anything. If you want to, you can replay baseball history just as it was, or you could play a whole new history with fictional characters, or even do a bit of both, perhaps using fictional teams but real players. It’s the spiritual descendant of APBA and Strat-O-Matic.

I’m, however, going to use it to do some simulations of World Baseball Classic baseball. Essentially, I downloaded a roster set that has the rosters of Major League Baseball and the minors at the end of the 2012 season. I then deleted all of the leagues, making everybody free agents. I then created a league of National teams: the USA Americans, the Dominican Republic Dominicans, the Italy Italians, etc.

And now I am putting players on the teams, as well as updating the attributes of some of the players (you can enter what their stats in a major league environment was and it’ll give you what their most recent power, contact, etc. abilities would be- otherwise it’d be going off of 2011 numbers, making Mike Trout merely a prospect instead of the most exciting player in baseball).

So far, I’ve created the USA, the Dominican, Australia, Italy (which has a heavy number of Italian-Americans) and I’m working on Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Mexico and Canada. So, for example, I could play a game with a lineup like this:

Screen Shot 2012-12-23 at 12.14.28 PM

It isn’t a perfect simulation: the simulation lacks pitch-count rules (thus allowing Justin Verlander to complete-game shutout the Italians and Australians almost any time he faces them) and sometimes the decisions made by the AI are a bit wonky (it made Joe Mauer the starting 1B originally, and had Ben Zobrist the starting 2B instead of the super-utility guy off the bench.. and I’m still trying to figure out why they have Clayton Tanner as the ace of the Australians and not Travis Blackley)… but it’s neat. So I’ll be sharing some of the stuff from it in the next few days.

For example, I think it’s safe to say, based on this simulation of 1000 games between Team USA and Italy, that the Americans should easily win the Pool D game against Italia:

Screen Shot 2012-12-23 at 12.30.45 PM

Who’s in/out/in-between of the World Baseball Classic as of 11:45 AM of Dec. 22, 2012

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I didn’t get the list of changes to World Baseball Classic participants last night, but here it is now:

  • Bad news for Team Canada: After having arm surgery to remove bone chips, Scott Diamond will be out of the WBC. Diamond would likely have been near the top of the Canadian rotation, especially if Scott Dempster doesn’t take part.
  • However, Regina’s Leader-Post confirms a few pitchers who are on the list for Canada, although they are all minor leaguers: Dustin Molleken, Andrew Albers (who was named COPABE’s best pitcher in international competition for 2011) and James Avery. I’m putting them in as possibly/likely, since they haven’t officially been confirmed yet.
  • Finally, @AntonioBargas sent to me a link to a Spanish-language article on players who are on possibilities for Team Mexico that were mentioned by the head of Mexico’s baseball federation. It heavily features some players of Mexican descent, and who knows if guys like Michael Young would play, but it’s an interesting look. I’ll have a bigger look at the Mexican possibilities later.

Go below the jump for the full list:

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