After the United States won their gold medal in ice hockey at the Olympics recently, this year's World Baseball Classic is timed beautifully. If the boys can grab gold at this tournament... it would be glorious!
The lineup is absolutely loaded and the pitching staff looks like the best staff they've put together in years.
Team USA's lineup could resemble something like this:
- Bobby Witt Jr.
- Bryce Harper
- Aaron Judge
- Kyle Schwarber
- Alex Bregman
- Cal Raleigh
- Roman Anthony
- Byron Buxton
- Brice Turang
My gosh, every single one these guys would be terrifying to face. They all would easily bat 1-4 on practically any MLB team.
Team USA's rotation:
Paul Skenes, Tarik Skubal, Logan Webb and Nolan McLean.
Paul Skenes is silly dominant. Tarik Skubal is only pitching once since he's due a mega massive MLB contract and doesn't want to risk his future, which I get. If Team USA were to win it all, they'd appear in seven games. So even one start by Skubal could prove valuable.
I'm seriously rooting Team USA on this year. While USA are the favorites, the favorite certainly doesn't win this tournament all the time. Baseball has grown into an international sport and there are certainly other super teams in this tournament. I believe Japan, Dominican Republic, Korea, and Mexico all have decent to very strong chances at claiming gold. Venezuela, Cuba, Australia, Puerto Rico, Italy, and Canada will also present some challenges as well. I mean, this tournament is pretty deep. There's likely teams I'm overlooking.
The World Baseball Classic is super interesting no doubt about it. This tournament has steadily gotten more and more popular. I think it's fun to have an actual world tournament where baseball is the main focus.
There's one thing I'd like to get off my chest though. I hear the laziest people that love to say:
'How is it the World Series when they aren't actually playing the world??? Arrogant Americans at it again thinking the world revolves around them...'
We have the World Baseball Classic, yes? Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was a league that existed that would bring the top players of all these countries together and have them compete? Man, that'd be something.
Oh wait there is... it's called Major League Baseball.
For those who are unaware: the MLB is one of the most internationally diverse professional leagues in sports.
I'm simply claiming that from a pure standpoint, the World Series Champion is an extremely valid World Champion. This can't be disputed. The MLB pools together the best players globally.
If Japan, Mexico, or Korea could pay players more and attract better talent to their own high level leagues, they probably would. But they can't. The MLB never struggles to attract top talent, because everyone that knows baseball, knows that the MLB is the pinnacle. Most, if not all professional baseball players would love nothing more than to reach the MLB.
I really don't even know how this is a debate. Roughly 1 in 3 players in MLB are international.
It’s funny that Americans are often accused of being “close-minded” or “uncultured,” yet when it comes to baseball, many critics ignore the obvious reality: Major League Baseball is where the best players from around the world compete.
Dismissing the World Series as a legitimate world title while ignoring that global talent pool, says more about the critic than it does about baseball.
Winning the World Series is not America claiming they are World Champions every year, not even close. The ignorance is pretty nuts. I'm pretty sure that's what we call projecting, and weird hostility...?
Whatever country wins the World Baseball Classic will have won a valid type of World Championship. I believe personally that a World Series Championship is equal in prestige to a World Baseball Classic gold medal. They are just in different lanes. A World Baseball Classic brings pride to a nation, while a World Series Championship seeks the best and brings pride to several nations.
World Series Championship = World Baseball Classic Gold
ALSO!!!
MLB is the closest thing baseball has to a GLOBAL super league.
But yes, the World Baseball Classic is awesome, it's a unique type of tournament that shows how great each country has come in this awesome sport.
If USA wins, I will absolutely be excited as possible! I am going to be over the moon. It's exciting to root on players that I normally would root against.
The very fact that there's high stakes baseball happening in March is so epic.
Good luck to all teams involved, while I want America to win, I hope they at least get a medal. It would be wild to see some underdog team win too.
