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2013 WBC Projections: Mexico

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Mexico is a bit of an engima. They play lots of baseball in Mexico, but it’s still far from the passion they have for futbol. They have a big professional league of their own that is regarded by MLB as being about AAA level, yet they don’t have that many Major Leaguers, although they are bolstered by some players who were born in the USA but spent much of their childhood in Mexico.

Therefore, Mexico is a bit harder to project, as they have very few MLB players but plenty of ballplayers overall. Thus this involved far more research and statistical searching to compile than, say, the previous WBC projections. That said, I have come up with a roster that fits the criteria I have been following so far:

As always, these are the rules of how I pick this roster, a combination of the official WBC rules on rosters and some unwritten rules that emerged during the first two tournaments:

  • 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.

Therefore, without further ado, my projections for the 2013 Mexican National Team (after the jump)

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What Franchise has the best Championship Percentage?

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The New York Yankees, are of course, the most successful sports franchise in North America (if not the world) by number of titles: 27. And it’s entirely possible that they could have gotten another one in 1994 had the strike not intervened (of course the same could be said for the Montreal Expos and several other teams). But here’s something that’s always bugged me: The Yankees and most other baseball teams have a big headstart against everyone else. So with the NHL and NBA now done with their postseasons, it’s time to take a look at what team has the best “Championship Percentage”. In other words, what teams have the most championships per year in existence where a championship was possible. Read on for more:

First, some guidelines:

  • Only “Big 4” teams are counted in this. That means foreign teams (Japanese baseball, European soccer, etc.) and minor league teams aren’t counted, nor are teams from the MLS, WNBA, NLL, Arena Football League, etc.
  • Championships will only count in years where the championship as we know it existed. That means that only modern-day World Series count for MLB, only Super Bowls count for NFL, only the Finals count for the NBA and only Stanley Cups from 1927 onward (when it became an NHL-only affair) count for the NHL. Years in which a championship was cancelled don’t count.
  • Years in a league that didn’t have a game in the championship (Pre-Super Bowl AFL, the ABA, the WHA…) don’t count.
  • This is for franchises, not teams. So, for example, the Lakers have the titles from their time in Minneapolis. The only exceptions to this are in those cases where the league has said specifically that they are separate franchises. For example, the Baltimore Ravens are treated by the NFL as if they were a expansion franchise, and the Cleveland Browns are treated as if they never left Cleveland and that they just sort of took a break for a few years in the nineties. Of course, you will not be seeing the Browns at all from this point on, anyway.
  • Teams that haven’t won at all won’t be counted.

More after the jump:

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2013 WBC Projections: Venezuela

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Venezuela. After the USA and Dominican, it provides the most players to the big leagues. But, much like the USA and DR, it hasn’t really played up to the number of big leaguers they have. Their best finish has been third in the 2009 Classic (and that was only because they were ahead of Team USA because of more wins during the primaries). However, they cannot be counted out. Venezuela is a country that often has divided and fluid politics that makes Washington look like a elementary school, but one thing binds them all together: baseball.

As always, these are the rules of how I pick this roster, a combination of the official WBC rules on rosters and some unwritten rules that emerged during the first two tournaments:

  • 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.

So, after much research and thought, here are my projections for the 2013 Venezuelan National Team (after the jump):

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Jeff Kent on Survivor… and other retired ballplayers who should do “reality” TV

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Jeff Kent is one of the greatest hitting second-basemen of all time (he leads the position in career homers), and a likely future Hall of Famer. He also infamously fought Barry Bonds in the dugout once.  He is also, according to some sources, going to be on the next season of Survivor. It is not without precedent: he previously took part in Superstars, and Survivor had Jimmy Johnson in 2010.

This leads to the humorous question of what other retired ballplayers should partake in reality TV. Hey, not every post can be about injuries, prospects, the World Baseball Classic or stupid comic books from the 1940s.

(JUMP)

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What’s the worst seat in Fenway?

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Okay, so I’ll be heading to Fenway Park later this year, thus allowing me to scratch another thing off my baseball bucket list. But one does not simply go to Fenway, one must plan. Fenway Park, after all, is from a time before modern design and engineering had made the obstructed view seat an endangered species. You could easily be stuck behind a pole or something.

Thankfully, there is a site called Precise Seating that allows you to see what your view would be like from most seats in Fenway. And, clearly, this was not only made to aid potential visitors to the Fens, but also to amuse those of us who want to find what the worst seat in the house is.

Sadly, Precise Seating doesn’t allow direct linking to the sites for individual seats, so follow along manually at home.

Anyway, now take a look at my non-scientific study after the jump:

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Great Predictions in History: Expansion will water down the Majors… in the late 60s.

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Occasionally, you hear about how watered down the Majors are compared to what they’d be if there were fewer teams. There is some truth to that, but it ignores the fact that A) the fact that so many cities can now see Major League Baseball is good not only for baseball, but America and B) the so-called “Golden Age” that those writers so often harken back to was the 40s and 50s- when there were far fewer sources of foreign talent and where several teams still hadn’t desegregated.

Of course, this is in no way new, as you’ll see in a April 1968 Baseball Digest excerpt after the jump:

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In honor of Father’s Day: the game of catch from Field of Dreams

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Today is Father’s Day. It is required, of course, to dwell upon the great history of father-and-son baseball players. However, it’s a busy day today, so I’ll just cut to the chase and embed a video of Ray Kinsella’s game of catch with his father:

WBC 2013 Projections: Dominican Republic

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As I stated at the end of my 2013 Team USA projections, I’ll also do some projections on possible players for the other teams as well. Here, for example, is the Dominican Republic.

The Dominican, in some ways, has been even more disappointing in the WBC than the USA has. They only managed fourth in the inaugural tournament, and they weren’t even able to make it out of the first round in 2009, losing twice to the Cinderella team from the Netherlands. Given how much pride the Dominicans have in their ballplayers, these could only be seen as large disappointments.

In 2013, like in the previous tournaments, the Dominican Republic will almost certainly bring a team made up of MLBers, with perhaps a few top prospects and overseas players if needed.

The same rules apply for this as I used with the Team USA projections, although in some cases they might not be as stringent, due to the fact the Dominicans generally are more into the WBC than American MLBers are.

  • 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.

And so, after much research and thought, I have my projections, which can be found under the jump:

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Projecting a possible 2013 USA WBC team

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(EDITED IN ON DEC. 31: As of this writing, the most recent projection for the United States can be found here.)

Joe Torre will be managing the 2013 WBC team. As I mentioned during my musings on what a baseball dream team in 1992 would have been like, I guess now is as good a time as any to try to predict who will be on the 2013 WBC team. Unlike my pie-in-the-sky 1992 team though, these predictions will be based more in the cold reality about WBC teams that emerges due to the fact that the tournament takes place during Spring Training:

  • 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.

So, with this in mind, and after much looking over of statistics and histories, here are my projections (after the jump):

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An Alternate History: What if there was a baseball dream team?

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I previously talked about how the IOC should put baseball and softball back into the Olympics. But it got me to thinking: what if MLB had been on board with the Olympics and had sent dream teams overseas? I’m not even talking about the World Baseball Classic teams, which often are missing some key players (primarily pitchers) due to the fact that spring training is at the same time and they are worried that going all-out so early could get them injured. I’m talking about no-holds-barred dream teams that would have taken part in the Olympics during an extended All-Star Break. Who would have gone?

Well, with there being a lot of talk about the 20th anniversary of the original Basketball Dream Team, it got me to thinking of what sort of team the USA would have sent to Barcelona had they A) been allowed (technically, no professionals were allowed to play baseball in the Olympics until the 2000 games) and B) had MLB done a extended All-Star Break to allow the players to go without missing any games.

Drawing inspiration from how the basketball Dream Team was picked, it would be made up not just of the best players available, but also the most marketable. In order to make sure everyone was ready in advance, they presumably would have picked the players based on their performance in 1991. While in 1992 the Olympic teams were limited at 20 players, by the time professionals were in the Olympics the roster had been increased to 24 or 25 players, so I’ll go with that.

So, presenting the alternate universe 1992 Team USA Olympic Baseball Team:

(more after jump)

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