Early WBC News for Feb. 23, 2013

Posted on February 23, 2013 by danglickman

If you missed last night’s WBC news, go here. For the stuff from overnight, go below the jump:

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Late WBC News for Feb. 22, 2013

Posted on February 22, 2013 by danglickman

Go below the jump for the latest WBC news:

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The Countdown to the WBC is on

Posted on February 22, 2013 by danglickman

Okay, with only a little more than a week left until the World Baseball Classic begins, here’s what to look for on the Baseball Continuum in the coming days:

More of the news: if anybody has to drop out at the last minute, it’ll be here. If there are warm-up games, the results will be posted here. If a team tries to spy on another team again, it’ll be here.
If you want to follow the WBC on Twitter, either follow me and/or follow the WBC Twitter-list I’m creating, which features players, journalists, organizations and other accounts that are related to the WBC in some way. More will be added in the coming days and weeks.
Pool-by-pool previews will be coming up, similar to what I did before the qualifying rounds.
Pictures of the Day will have an international flavor.
And more!

So, stay tuned to the Baseball Continuum, and don’t forget to check out Joe Connor’s WBC Guide as well!

Team USA would win about 127 games

Posted on February 21, 2013 by danglickman

Inspired by Ground Ball With Eyes’ look at the 1992 Springfield Nuclear Power Plant Softball Team, I decided to take a look at how well Team USA’s World Baseball Classic team would do if they were playing a season of Major League Baseball. So, I decided to, similar to how GBWE took a look at SNPP by using WAR, I will do the same thing. Baseball-Reference puts a team of “replacement level” players as being about a 52-win team, so presumably by adding up all the 2012-season Wins-Above-Replacement-Level of Team USA’s players and then adding them to those 52 wins that a replacement level team would be getting.

And the result of this little bit of research is this: Team USA would, if participating in Major League Baseball, be the greatest team ever assembled, going 127-35 (or maybe 126-36, depends on how you round).

Now, obviously, this isn’t a perfect way of determining how good the team would be, and it uses a 28-man roster instead of the 25 to 40 players that would be on a real MLB roster during a season. And, of course, it’s unlikely that all of the players would get as much playing time as they did on their usual teams, since obviously they couldn’t all be starters or all be the closer.

Still, when you hear somebody talk about how disappointing Team USA is and how it lacks some stars, consider that this team would be a runaway division winner.

Go below the jump if you want to see the WAR of every member of Team USA.

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