Post by Chris Hatfield on Aug 26, 2016 8:59:10 GMT -5
2017 WBC pools got announced yesterday. There's one more qualifier this fall
Pool A (Tokyo, 3/7-10): Japan, Cuba, Australia, China
Pool B (Seoul, 3/7-10): Korea, Netherlands, Chinese Taipei, and the Brooklyn qualifier (Brazil, Israel, Great Britain, Pakistan)
Pool C (Miami, 3/9-13): Dominican Republic, USA, Canada, Colombia
Pool D (Guadalajara, 3/9-13): Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Mexico, Italy
Second-round will be Pools A and B in Tokyo March 12-15 and Pools C & D in San Diego on March 14-18, witht he four-team finals at Dodger Stadium March 20-22.
Interesting that Cuba gets sent to Japan if they were trying to keep this relatively geographically based, but at least one of Cuba, USA, DR, PR, VZ probably needed to be sent out there to give the best 8 teams a shot at getting to Los Angeles. As it is, Mexico probably got screwed - you wonder if they'd have preferred to go to Seoul than to host PR and VZ.
Pretty easy to predict how the first round breaks down. The North American second round will be a dogfight between all four teams, while Japan and Cuba would appear to be heavy favorites to get to L.A. Need to see who's going to play though to really get into the nitty gritty.
As for Red Sox, you'd guess the candidates to play will look something like this:
USA: Betts, Pedroia, Bradley?, and then it's always a crapshoot with pitchers, so who knows there (Price, Porcello, Kimbrel, Pomeranz even)
Netherlands: Bogaerts
VZ: Rodriguez?, Sandy Leon maybe?
DR: Hanley. Could they convince Ortiz to play? For most other countries, but not this one, Devers might be a candidate.
PR: Vazquez, maaaaaaybe Ramos?
As far as the qualifier, given how they define where guys are from, pretty any Jewish player could play for Israel (and I'm terrible at picking that out from names). Curveball for you - if Italy qualifies for the WBC, do we see Benintendi there?
As far as Cuba goes, I presume this will be their actual national team rather than a team that includes all the expats, but how cool would it be if they did? Hopefully next time we get that. Like you wouldn't be interested in a team including Cespedes, Puig, Chapman, and the rest?
Pool A (Tokyo, 3/7-10): Japan, Cuba, Australia, China
Pool B (Seoul, 3/7-10): Korea, Netherlands, Chinese Taipei, and the Brooklyn qualifier (Brazil, Israel, Great Britain, Pakistan)
Pool C (Miami, 3/9-13): Dominican Republic, USA, Canada, Colombia
Pool D (Guadalajara, 3/9-13): Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Mexico, Italy
Second-round will be Pools A and B in Tokyo March 12-15 and Pools C & D in San Diego on March 14-18, witht he four-team finals at Dodger Stadium March 20-22.
Interesting that Cuba gets sent to Japan if they were trying to keep this relatively geographically based, but at least one of Cuba, USA, DR, PR, VZ probably needed to be sent out there to give the best 8 teams a shot at getting to Los Angeles. As it is, Mexico probably got screwed - you wonder if they'd have preferred to go to Seoul than to host PR and VZ.
Pretty easy to predict how the first round breaks down. The North American second round will be a dogfight between all four teams, while Japan and Cuba would appear to be heavy favorites to get to L.A. Need to see who's going to play though to really get into the nitty gritty.
As for Red Sox, you'd guess the candidates to play will look something like this:
USA: Betts, Pedroia, Bradley?, and then it's always a crapshoot with pitchers, so who knows there (Price, Porcello, Kimbrel, Pomeranz even)
Netherlands: Bogaerts
VZ: Rodriguez?, Sandy Leon maybe?
DR: Hanley. Could they convince Ortiz to play? For most other countries, but not this one, Devers might be a candidate.
PR: Vazquez, maaaaaaybe Ramos?
As far as the qualifier, given how they define where guys are from, pretty any Jewish player could play for Israel (and I'm terrible at picking that out from names). Curveball for you - if Italy qualifies for the WBC, do we see Benintendi there?
As far as Cuba goes, I presume this will be their actual national team rather than a team that includes all the expats, but how cool would it be if they did? Hopefully next time we get that. Like you wouldn't be interested in a team including Cespedes, Puig, Chapman, and the rest?