Tag Archives: World Baseball Classic news

World Baseball Classic Update For March 7, 2016

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It’s been a fairly quiet week in WBC news, as we await the official release of the rosters for the next round of qualifiers. Still, there has been some news:

 

Jon Morosi on the Czech Republic’s WBC team and how the country’s hockey heritage has led to a lot of left-handed hitters.

The Japanese National Team swept Taiwan in a 3-game early warm-up for next year’s WBC.

Nicaragua leads Panama 2-1 in a warm-up series.

Alex Rodriguez, who famously has hemmed and hawed between playing for the USA (the land of his birth) and the Dominican (the land where he spent significant parts of his childhood), has said if he takes part in 2017 it’ll be for the Dominican.

Alex Cora will be the General Manager of Team Puerto Rico for the 2017 WBC.

ESPN Deportes will be showing the Mexicali qualifying round this month for any Spanish-speaking fans in the USA.

As expected, Max Kepler will not be playing for Germany in the qualifiers, as he will be staying in camp. It was thought that it was unlikely anyway given how he has an outside chance at making the opening day roster, but this is further confirmation.

…And that’s it for now. More soon, hopefully.

 

World Baseball Classic News for March 1, 2016

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Here’s the latest WBC news as of March 1, 2016:

 

Team Germany will play exhibition games against three different Mexican League teams, as well as a team from the Brewers organization.

“Samurai Japan” has teamed up with the Anime series Mr. Osomatsu to help raise awareness for the team, both in the WBC and in other tournaments (where they generally don’t draw as well).

George Springer, who’s mother is from Puerto Rico, has apparently been recruited by Carlos Correa to play for Team Puerto Rico in the main tournament next year.

News on who will and will not be in the WBC qualifiers:

First off, the Mexican League will be allowing their players to play for Team Mexico.

Jake Sanchez of the Athletics organization will play for Mexico

Jose Quinanta of the White Sox is in for Colombia.

Sadly for Colombia, Julio Teheran will not be pitching for them.

The official rosters apparently come out tomorrow, so that’s something to keep an eye out for.

 

World Baseball Classic Update for February 26, 2016

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Hello, everybody. Here’s some WBC news from the last few weeks, in no particular order:

The Mexican League and the Mexican Baseball Federation continue to squabble, making it unlikely that any Mexican leaguers will partake in the qualifying. However, I’ve also seen some tweets that indicate that this has been solved and that Mexican League players will take part. I’ll let you know when I have it cleared up.

Yovani Gallardo had said that he was going to play for the Mexican team in the qualifiers, but that was before he signed with the Orioles, so that may change. Another iffy Mexican pitcher is Julio Urias, a top prospect for the Dodgers, who has said he will skip the qualifiers if it looks like he has a good chance of making the team.

A preliminary roster for Team Nicaragua (thanks to Max Wildstein) was released. This roster has since changed (you can find how it has in some of the other items) and would be pared down to 28 anyway, but it gives you a good idea of some of the players who will be on the team:

Omar Vizquel will be the manager of Team Venezuela next year. Bobby Abreu and Magglio Ordonez were candidates for the batting coach position, and it appears that Magglio won the job. Other tweets have confirmed that Eduardo Perez will be a bench coach, Roberto Espinoza will be the pitching coach, and Henry Blanco will be a bullpen coach. Also in Venezuelan news: Gregor Blanco wants to play for his country in the 2017 WBC.

The Spanish have announced their coaching staff for the upcoming qualifiers, led by Tigers Latin American director Manny Crespo.

Quebecois closing great Eric Gagne, meanwhile, will helm Team France.

Mike Griffin will manage the Czech team, while Trot Nixon (!) will be hitting coach.

Speaking of the Czechs, it appears that they will have more players with North American experience than last time thanks to players of Czech ancestry, such as John Straka, Brett Tomko, Mike Cervenak, and Alex Sogard. However, apparently Eric Sogard has been denied, unless if he hasn’t. I find it much less likely that he will take part, though. The Czechs will be playing exhibitions in Arizona ahead of the qualifiers.

Donovan Solano, now in the Yankees organization, is still deciding whether he will play for Colombia in the qualifiers or if he will stay in camp. However, he is listed in a list of MLB-affiliated players who are “confirmed” for Colombia:

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Dilson Herrera of the Mets, as said above, will definitely suit up for Team Colombia. Others listed in the above tweet (if it doesn’t show up): William Cuevas, Carlos Mario Diaz, Kevin Escorcia, Tayron Guerrero, Gregory Nappo, Jesus Posso, Mauricio Ramos, Reynaldo Rodriguez, Tito Polo, Harold Ramirez, and Carlos Vidal. Apparently a complete list for Colombia will be out on Saturday.

David Ortiz doesn’t think he’ll play for Team Dominican Republic next spring.

Carlos Ruiz has been authorized to play for Team Panama, which is huge, even if he isn’t as good as he used to be.

Dean Kremer, a pitcher for UNLV who’s parents are from Israel and who lives there during summers when he isn’t playing, hopes to play for Team Israel in the WBC qualifiers.

Elmer Reyes of the Braves organization will play for Nicaragua. Wuillian Vasquez, a Venezuelan-born player who has lived and played in Nicaragua for several years while also playing in Europe, is also eligible.

The German National team will have a exhibition game against the Tijuana Toros on March 9.

Quick run-down of other players who have been confirmed in/out for certain qualifying teams (from various Twitter sources found by @MaxWildstein):

Randall Delgado is out for Panama but Andy Otero is in.

Cheslor Cuthbert is out for Nicaragua, as is Wilton Lopez, who has an injury.

Luis Guillorme is in for Spain.

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Now, this was a lot of news. Maybe too much. And I probably missed some. And for that reason, I’m glad to say that starting now, WBC Updates will be FAR more frequent, occurring AT LEAST once a week, but at times happening on a daily or every-other-daily basis.

World Baseball Classic Update for February 9, 2016

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As we barrel towards the World Baseball Classic Qualifiers, here’s the latest news:

 

The Run-Up to the Sydney Qualifiers:

First off, the most important news for all of us is how we’ll be able to watch it. And good news! In the USA and Canada, all games will be on the World Baseball Classic website! Go to the link to see how else you can watch it, as select games will be on TV on MLB Network and all games will be on ESPN in the Pacific Rim area, although some games will be tape-delayed.

There have been some changes to rosters since they were first announced. Perhaps the most notable addition has been that infielder Gift Ngoepe has been added to South Africa. Probably the best African baseball player in history, Gift is now on the Pirates’ 40-man roster, which probably delayed it being official.

Various teams have been playing informal warm-up games in the run-up to the qualifiers. You can see pictures and info on some of New Zealand’s play on their Facebook page, for example.

The New Zealanders will be wearing #37 on their uniforms in memory of Lincoln Holdzkom, who died in a car accident last year.

In other WBC news:

Tickets are now on sale for the Panama City portion of the Qualifiers.

Attention Britons and people with fairly close British ancestry: the United Kingdom’s baseball team is holding open tryouts on Sunday, March 6th!

Athletics catching prospect Bruce Maxwell, who was born in Germany, will be part of the German team in their qualifying tournament.

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There are a few other stories I’ve missed, but I’m hard at work on the WBC Qualifier preview for Sydney, so those other stories will have to wait until next time!

 

 

(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…

WBC News for September 9, 2015: Some other stuff

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There’s some other World Baseball Classic news I forgot to get to yesterday:

First off, way back in April, Russell Martin said he’s totally up for another go-around for Canada in 2017. He infamously missed the 2013 Classic because he wanted to play middle-infield.

In March, Jon Morosi- the biggest WBC booster amongst mainstream MLB writers- talked a bit about it. The 12 teams that didn’t finish last in their groups (Canada, China, Chinese Taipei, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Puerto Rico, South Korea, United States and Venezuela) will automatically get a bid. No major changes are expected in the actual WBC itself, although the teams that finished last in their groups (Mexico, Australia, Brazil and Spain) will have to go through qualifiers to qualify again. He indicated that Mexico, Germany, Australia and Panama were the likely places to hold qualifiers, due to facilities and likelihood to participate. He estimated that most qualifiers would occur in September and/or November of 2016, although he says that Australia may host in February of 2016 after the end of their league’s season but before Spring Training.

Speaking of which, the New Zealand baseball federation’s twitter feed implied that, indeed, there will be an Australian-based qualifier in February next year. However, I personally e-mailed Australia’s baseball federation asking about where they stand as far as the WBC, and they said that they have yet to hear from WBC Inc. (the company formed by Major League Baseball, the MLBPA, the IBAF and other professional leagues to manage the tournament), although they do know they will, as expected, have to go through qualifiers. It’s possible, perhaps even likely, that there will be a qualifying round in Australia in February 2016, but it’s definitely not official yet.

Finally, there was some talk that the Mexican portion of the qualifiers would be held in Mexicali, Hermosillo, or Monterrey.

Remember to follow the Baseball Continuum for more WBC news as it comes out in the coming weeks, months and years.

 

WBC News for September 8, 2015: Managers/Coaches for Teams Nicaragua, Panama, New Zealand, and Israel, possible reveal of when qualifiers will be?

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Yes, it’s been awhile, but it’s time to start up the ole’ World Baseball Classic news machine, as over the past few weeks we got some of the first news about the 2017 WBC and it’s 2016 qualifiers!

First off, Brewers bench coach Jerry Narron will have some sort of coaching position on the Israeli national team. Narron’s daughter lives in Israel and all of this apparently was set into motion when she off-handedly remarked about her father’s baseball pedigree to the Israeli Baseball Association’s president. The manager for Team Israel, meanwhile, will be Jerry Weinstein, a coach in the Rockies system. Shawn Green will also be a member of the coaching staff. It’s mentioned that the heads of Israeli baseball hope that it’s qualifying round will take place during the off-season- in 2012 (for the 2013 Classic), it took place during the season.

Meanwhile, former Giant Marvin Benard, now a coach in the Padres organization, has been named manager for Team Nicaragua for the qualifying round for the 2017 Classic. According to the article (or at least my Middle School Spanish and a google translation), the qualifying tournament that Nicaragua will be in will be held in Panama in March of 2016, in the same bracket as Panama, Brazil and Colombia (in other words, the same four that were in this bracket in the previous WBC qualifiers). I haven’t seen any confirmation either way whether this is true, but at the very least the teams in the group sound about right.

New Zealand has also named it’s coaching staff.  Chris Woodward, a coach for the Mariners, will be the skipper in the qualifier. Ron Roenicke will be a bench coach, Josh Bard will be a hitting coach, NPB veteran Naoyuki Shimizu will be the pitching coach, and Chris Prieto and D.J. Carrasco will also help coach.

Finally, Carlos Lee will be managing Team Panama.

So, that’s your first news update on the 2017 World Baseball Classic. If you know any news that I don’t have here, let me know by e-mailing me at djgwriter@yahoo.com or on Twitter (@DanJGlickman).

Until next time!