Tag Archives: IBAF

(Blogathon ’16) WBC News for January 29, 2016

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This post is part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page.

It’s time for a World Baseball Classic update! With the first qualifiers coming up, more news has started to come out. Let’s take a look at some of the news:

Sydney Qualifying Pool Rosters and Schedules released:

On Wednesday, the rosters and schedules for the Sydney qualifying pool came out. They can be found over here on Baseball America. I’ll have a more thorough preview as we get closer to the event, but it’s definitely a case where Australia should be considered the heavy favorite, full of players with experience in MLB or the Minors. After Australia, it’s a fight for the second spot to face them in a winner-take-all game to get to the main tournament. Clay Rapada is probably the most notable player outside of the Australians, as he will be playing for the Philippines, the country of his father’s birth, before retiring. Former All-Star Jason Bartlett, also of Filipino descent, was also expected to play, but I don’t see him on the roster.

News from other qualifying pools:

As I mentioned last time, the qualifiers, unlike the main tournament, are not events where MLB teams are required to allow 40-man roster players to take part if there’s an overlap with official team acitivites. This will most hurt a team like Mexico, where the Blue Jays are unlikely to allow their three Mexican players from taking part in the March qualifier in Mexicali.

Jon Morosi, one of the best people to follow for WBC news, had information on his Twitter feed on the German team, who will be managed by Garth Iorg (yes, that Garth Iorg). Depending on what difficulties Mexico has, they could be a threat in Mexicali, even with Max Kepler likely skipping as he tries to win a spot on the Twins, they will have Donald Lutz, one of the few Germans with MLB experience.

Bruce Chen, who retired last season, is apparently willing to pitch for Panama.

Other WBC News:

Ozzie Guillen is totally up for managing Team Venezuela in 2017.

 

And that’s it… for now.

Keep an eye out for more WBC news on the Baseball Continuum as it occurs.

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At 9 AM: International Baseball Culture

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This post has been part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page.

World Baseball Classic News for 12-17-2015: Catching Up

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It’s time to catch up on some World Baseball Classic news!

 

Lincoln Holdzkom passes away

First off, though, there is tragic news out of California, where New Zealander-American pitcher Lincoln Holdzkom has passed away after a car accident. Holdzkom, the brother of John Holdzkom of the Pirates organization, was expected to be the team captain for New Zealand in the WBC Qualifiers. Our thoughts are with him and his family and friends.

Mexico’s roster starts to take shape

Jon Morosi has an article on the Mexican National Team that has begun to take shape. Edgar Gonzalez will be the manager for Team Mexico in the WBC Qualifiers and presumably the main tournament as well if they qualify. His younger brother, Adrian Gonzalez, will be on the roster. The team could be pretty deep in pitching, Morosi writes:

Mexico’s preliminary roster will be especially deep in pitching, with Yovani Gallardo, Marco Estrada, Roberto Osuna, Aaron Sanchez, Miguel Gonzalez and Dodgers prospect Julio Urias among the notable arms certain to be included on it. Pitchers Jorge De La Rosa, Joakim Soria and Olivez Perez also are eligible to play for Mexico, as is Dodgers outfielder Andre Ethier, who is Mexican-American.

However, there are some problems that could trip up Mexico. For one thing, while MLB teams are very strongly encouraged to allow players to participate in the qualifiers, they are not required (unlike the main rounds of the WBC, where they are only allowed to officially block player participation if they are coming off an injury or there are too many players being picked from their roster). In addition, there is an ongoing feud between the Mexican League and Mexico’s national baseball federation that will make the participation of Mexican Leaguers iffy.

Edwin Rodriguez will begin recruiting for Team Puerto Rico

In a Spanish-language article on Elnuevodia.com, there is the news that Edwin Rodriguez will soon begin to recruit for Team Puerto Rico. While the article mentions how he will try to make an effort to get players of Puerto Rican descent (like Jake Arrieta) to take part, I personally think it’s more likely they’ll have to rely upon native-born Puerto Ricans like Yadier Molina, Carlos Beltran, Angel Pagan, Carlos Correa, Francisco Lindor, and the like. All of them are mentioned in the article. Puerto Rico came in a surprising second in the 2013 WBC.

Other Notes:

So, until next time, this has been a WBC update!

World Baseball Classic News for 9-17-2015: Qualifier Pools Announced!

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Well, I told you that more news was probably coming, and today it was confirmed, as the World Baseball Classic qualifying pools have been announced! They are (all qualifiers in 2016):

 

Qualifier 1 (Sydney, Australia on February 11-14th):

Australia

New Zealand

Philippines

South Africa

Qualifier 2 (Mexicali, Mexico on March 17-20th):

Mexico

Czech Republic

Germany

Nicaragua

Qualifier 3 (Panama City on March 17-20th):

Colombia

France

Panama

Spain

Qualifier 4 (Brooklyn on Sept. 22-25th):

Brazil

Great Britain

Israel

Pakistan

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As you can see, they’ve mixed up the locations (only Panama is a return qualifying host), the pools (no pool has more than two teams that were in the same individual pool last time), and also teams (Pakistan has replaced Thailand). Some things to note here:

  • MLB players will be able to participate in Qualifiers 1-3, but not Qualifier 4.
  • It is again a modified double-elimination, meaning it’s double elimination until there are only two, at which point it’s a winner-take-all championship game. I’ve always had a problem with this format and feel a straight-up double-elimination would be better, but I understand how the organizers would like the drama of a winner-take-all game.
  • Qualifier 4, in Brooklyn, is clearly meant to be a pool of teams that don’t have pro-worthy stadiums in their countries. It’s likely Brooklyn was picked due to New York’s diverse nature, with MLB and the other WBC organizers no doubt hoping that the city’s large Jewish population will turn up for Israel games.
  • Looking at this right now, I’d say that Qualifier 2 will probably have the highest level of talent, Qualifier 3 will be the hardest for any one team to get out of, and Qualifier 4 will be the hardest to predict. Qualifier 1, by contrast, looks like it should be a fairly easy draw for Australia.
  • I’m somewhat surprised that the Philippines is in Qualifier 1. I had a feeling they might make it an All-Commonwealth pool and have the Philippines be in New York City. At least, that’s what I thought after reading Jon Paul Morosi’s original post before it was official.

 

So, look in the coming days and no doubt more news will come out and I’ll take a look at some of the teams and other aspects of the qualifying tournament- like Pakistan’s baseball program.

 

World Baseball Classic News for 9-15-2015: The WBSC makes it official

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The WBSC (the World Baseball-Softball Confederation, formed from the combination of the IBAF and it’s softball counterpart to pool efforts to again make the Olympics) has officially sanctioned the 2017 World Baseball Classic and it’s qualifying rounds. This is mainly a formality that ensures that the official baseball federations are taking part and that it counts for certain international purposes, such as the world rankings.

So, with the tournament now officially official, it seems likely that more WBC news will start coming out soon. So stay tuned…

Some stuff at the bottom in the August 2, 2014 Continuum Baseball Rankings

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It’s been awhile, but it’s time to update the Continuum Baseball Rankings! The C-Levels of the European Championships took place recently, and since it included previously-included Continuum Rankings teams like Israel, Ireland and Slovenia and involved senior teams (i.e. the best players they could round up given circumstances), it counts in the Rankings! Of course, the best players that these teams could get aren’t necessarily that great (the best rosters in this tournament would probably be beaten by fairly good D3 college teams)- Israel didn’t have Minor League ringers this time around like in the WBC Qualifiers, for example. But still, it counts, and Israel won it.

So, the movements in this installment (all at the bottom of the rankings, more or less):

  • Slovenia and Ireland swapped places, with Slovenia (which finished 2nd in the tournament) taking 47th while Ireland (4th) fell to 48.
  • Romania entered the rankings at 49, pushing Mongolia (inactive) back to 50.
  • Finland, Latvia, Hungary and Norway made their Rankings debut, being 51, 52, 53, and 54, respectively. Norway is now the lowest-rated team in the Rankings, and would, if they were to face a Senior USA team (which could mean anything from Indy Leaguers all the way up to MLB-filled WBC teams), lose over 99.39% of the time.

 

Lastly, a note about methodology: To make updates a bit more active, I am considering making it so that the Rankings cover everything 18 and over. This would bring in results by college teams and the like. Such a change won’t be made until 2015, but it’s something to note.

 

Anyway, current rankings are after the jump:

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The grand World Baseball Classic Question and Answer (Part 2: The Game Rules)

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Okay, if you saw yesterday’s post, you are no doubt prepared for another round of questions and answers about the World Baseball Classic. Today, we look at some of the rules and regulations of the tournament… after the jump:

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