Late WBC News for Feb. 22, 2013

Posted on February 22, 2013 by danglickman

Go below the jump for the latest WBC news:

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!

Early WBC News for Feb. 22, 2013

Posted on February 22, 2013 by danglickman

Only one bit of news for this morning, but it’s a big one: The full PDF of the World Baseball Classic 28-man rosters, complete with what team the player is normally on.

It can be downloaded here.

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.

Continue reading →

Late WBC News for Feb. 21, 2013

Posted on February 21, 2013 by danglickman

Well, the 28-man rosters have been released… but sadly they aren’t available to the general public yet, since the WBC website has yet to be updated and I can’t find a PDF version of the rosters either. So until I can find stuff like that (presumably by the morning update tomorrow), here’s a quote from the press release:

Many of the game’s elite stars and veterans of Major League Baseball (MLB), Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) and other leagues from Asia, Latin America, Europe and Australia will participate in the third edition of the World Baseball Classic. From the ranks of Major League Baseball, the rosters include 2012 American League Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera of Venezuela as well as fellow past Most Valuable Players Ryan Braun (USA), Joe Mauer (USA), Justin Morneau (Canada), Jimmy Rollins (USA), Miguel Tejada (Dominican Republic) and Joey Votto (Canada). Reigning Cy Young Award winner R.A. Dickey is on the roster of Team USA.

Including the names above, there are 45 Major League All-Stars who appear on the submitted rosters (alphabetically): Elvis Andrus (Venezuela), Heath Bell (USA), Carlos Beltran (Puerto Rico), Braun, Asdrubal Cabrera (Venezuela), Robinson Cano (Dominican Republic), Nelson Cruz (Dominican Republic), Dickey, Yovani Gallardo (Mexico), Adrian Gonzalez (Mexico), Carlos Gonzalez (Venezuela), Gio Gonzalez (USA), Ramon Hernandez (Venezuela), Omar Infante (Venezuela), Adam Jones (USA), Andruw Jones (Netherlands), Craig Kimbrel (USA), Russell Martin (Canada), Mauer, Yadier Molina (Puerto Rico), Miguel Montero (Venezuela), Morneau, Chris Perez (USA), Brandon Phillips (USA), Martin Prado (Venezuela), Hanley Ramirez (Dominican Republic), Jose Reyes (Dominican Republic), Alex Rios (Puerto Rico), Fernando Rodney (Dominican Republic), Francisco Rodriguez (Venezuela), Rollins, Pablo Sandoval (Venezuela), Giancarlo Stanton (USA), Mark Teixeira (USA), Tejada, Jose Valverde (Dominican Republic), Javier Vazquez (Puerto Rico), Shane Victorino (USA), Ryan Vogelsong (USA), Edinson Volquez (Dominican Republic), Votto, David Wright (USA), Carlos Zambrano (Venezuela) and Ben Zobrist (USA).

Other participants of note are eight returning players from Japan’s 2009 Championship Team, including two Pacific League MVPs, pitcher Toshiya Sugiuchi and outfielder Seiichi Uchikawa, as well as the reigning Central League MVP, catcher Shinnosuke Abe; 11 returning players from Korea’s 2009 Finalist squad, including infielder Tae-Kyun Kim and outfielder Hyun-Soo Kim; Cuban stars Frederich Cepeda, Alfredo Despaigne and Yulieski Gourriel; Canadian relief pitcher John Axford, infielder Brett Lawrie and pitcher Jameson Taillon, the second overall choice in the 2010 MLB Draft; longtime Major League pitcher Chien-Ming Wang of Chinese Taipei, marking his first World Baseball Classic appearance, as well as 2008 MLB Futures Game MVP Che-Hsuan Lin of Chinese Taipei; 2005 MLB Futures Game MVP Justin Huber of Australia; Team Italy’s Anthony Rizzo and Alex Liddi, who became the first Italian-born and developed Major League player ever in 2011; Netherlands infielders Andrelton Simmons and Xander Bogaerts; Minor Leaguers Ray Chang and Wei Wang of Team China; and members of the 2012 World Series Champion San Francisco Giants, including National League Championship Series MVP Marco Scutaro of Venezuela and outfielder Angel Pagan of Puerto Rico.