cHE Speaks (about sports sometimes)

The World Baseball Classic is upon us for the first time since 2017 and more stars than ever are slated to play. From Ohtani to Bogaerts, to Altuve to Machado and Trout. Almost all of the leagues best players have committed to play for their home countries. Here are six of the storylines I am keeping up with.

Who is coming out of of Pool D

Pool D is STACKED. Sorry Israel and Nicaragua you don’t have much of a chance here even though I think they both have solid squads and maybe next time around they should be put in the same Pool with Team USA who have a very easy draw…. But that’s a different conversation.

There are three teams that all have legitimate cases to win it all, one a little more than others. 

The first is Venezuela who are lead by Jose Altuve, Ronald Acuña Jr and legend Miguel Cabrera. But the team goes a lot deeper than those big names. They are set at every position (I’d view them a little higher if new Cardinals catcher Wilson Contreras opted in). Eduardo Rodríguez and Pablo López lead a more than solid pitching staff. With no clear hole in the roster they have as good a chance to go far as other middle of the pack teams like Korea, Cuba and our next team Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico is down their best player in Giants, I mean Mets, I mean Twins shortstop Carlos Correa, but dont think for a second that means they are out. They still posses possibly the best 1-2 punch up the middle in Javier Baez and Franciso Lindor. Team PR has great bats and defense but the area that looks suspect to me is the starting pitching staff. Outside of Marcus Stroman and Jose Berrios, I don’t see a lot of long outings. They will need the bullpen led by the Diaz brothers to step up big. 

Finally team Que Lo Que, team Dominican Republic, my favorite to win it all. While team Venezuela is deep, they dont have as many of the flashy names. Team DR’s potential starting lineup is littered with franchise players and future hall of famers. Juan Soto, Rafeal Devers, Manny Machado, WS MVP Jeremey Pena, ROY Julio Rodriguez and the list goes on and on. And that is without two of their top five possible players in the injured Vlad Guerrero Jr and the suspended Fernando Tatis Jr.

A pitching staff led by Sandy Alcantara, and Roansy Contreras is primed to be consistent and have a variety of arms for different situations. 

Of these three teams only two will advance. My pick is team Dominican and team Venezuela. Sorry Boricuas, next time.

Which of the big teams will get upset 

If you were to quickly skim the Internet today you would see that three teams are considered to be a cut above the rest, the aforementioned Dominicans, two time champ team Japan (more about them later) and the defending champs team USA who have a stacked lineup featuring multiple MVPS led by Mike Trout. Of these teams I have Team USA losing in the second round due to their lack of starting pitching depth or really any high level major league starters after Clayton Kershaw and Nasty Nestor Cortes dropped out. Now you might be saying but they have the best lineup Ché what’re you talking about?! And they do have one of the better lineups. But I have them losing in the second round to Venezuela after getting touched up early for a lot and not being able to battle back.

Team Cuba with defectors?!

For the first time in international play Cuba will have MLB players who defected to other countries to come play for their home country. Due to a myriad of geo political issues it has been challenging to get as many players as Cuba should have on their roster but this year, that begins to change. White sox stars Luis Robert and Yoân Moncada and Cuban baseball legend and former major leaguer Yoenis Céspedes headline what will be a tough draw for whoever comes up against them. Cuba was historically a very very good team in international play winning multiple Olympic gold medals and finishing 2nd in this competition in 2006. But in the past few years they have fallen off a bit. 

I don’t think they have the chance to win it all this year, but I do think this can serve as a launching point to get Cuban baseball back to the respected place it held on the world stage not but a few years ago.

SLEEPER

Every year in every tournament in sports there is a team that goes a little further than they should. And this year I have Taiwan or “Chinese Taipei” as that Cinderella team. They are in in Pool A, the weakest of the pools and have the necessary pieces to upset Cuba or the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Led by new Red Sox utility man Yu Chang and two of the best players in the Chinese Professional Baseball League, Li Lin (109 G, .335/.391/.517, 14 HR, 83 RBI) who was MVP of the league and Kungkuan Giljegiljaw who also had 14 homers last year in the CPBL. Look out for those names this tournament.

Japan’s best player isn’t Shohei Ohtani 

Don’t look at me Ohtani said it first! And maybe he was just gasing up his countrymen but the three best non MLB roster players are currently on team Japan.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto is the best pitcher and probably the best player overall in the NPB. Yamamoto won back-to-back Sawamura Awards (basically the Japanese Cy Young). Winner of back-to-back pitching Triple Crowns, leading the Pacific League in wins, ERA and strikeouts in both seasons. And on top of all that he won back-to-back Pacific League MVP Awards.

His numbers in 2021: 

18-5 

1.39 ERA 

206 strikeouts

193 2/3 innings

His numbers in 2022: 

15-5

1.68 ERA 

205 strikeouts

193 innings 

All signs point to him being posted in 2023 so this WBC will be major for him to show off his skills for an international audience. Scouts will be looking to see how his power and control look against MLB bats especially since he’s a bit undersized at 5’10.

Last year I kept hearing the name Roki Sasaki on social media or from international baseball fans. In April of 2022 Sasaki threw at 19 strikeout perfect game. Yeah you read that right. 19 strikeouts. The best in MLB history is 14 strikeouts in perfect games by Matt Cain and Sandy Koufax. Then in his next start he threw eight more prefect innings just the next week. So this is all to say he’s really good at playing baseball. He won’t be posted until at least 2027 since he just turned 21. But this will still be a litmus test to see how his stuff looks against top notch hitters.

Now the player I am watching the most is Munetaka Murakami, a lefty corner infielder who just turned 23. While Aaron Judge was breaking Roger Maris’s American League home run record Murakami was busy breaking Sadaharu Oh’s single-season record for a Japanese-born player after mashing 56 home runs. Murakami also doesn’t to be posted for sometime (probably in 2025-26). Traditionally Japanese hitters do not translate as well as pitchers to the Major Leagues but I have a good feeling that Murakami will be one of the outliers in the same vein as slugger Hideki Matsui. Keep an eye on his at bats.

Who even cares about the WBC?

After spending all that time hyping up my favorite storylines I now ask does anyone really care about World Baseball Classic games? It conflicts March Madness and my favorite player could get injured. I have heard baseball fans of all ages treat the WBC with ambivalence at best, not understanding the significance of WBC baseball to the global audience. Crowds in the WBC are ELECTRIC, particularly the fans of the Latin American teams. And the Latin American players are injected with an extra dose of energy from being around their countrymen and not their “old school” American teammates and managers.

And let’s faces it, American ball players and fans are sticks in the mud. They are often stale, bland and don’t play with a lot of flair. Baseball players from Latin America personality wise and culturally more resemble American basketball players. Cool, emotional, swagged out, full of personality and drip. This is what we need in Major League Baseball today and hopefully fans of all ages from around the world can marvel in the joy and skill of all of these guys representing their country playing the children’s game.