Your comprehensive guide to the World Baseball Classic
· Yahoo Sports
Almost nine years ago to this day, I wrote about the history of the World Baseball Classic, fearing its end and opining for its more thorough embrace. I opened with this:
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The World Baseball Classic (WBC) should, ostensibly, be important. It’s a huge tournament that occurs only once every four years and features some of the best Major League Baseball talents and national stars, all competing to best represent their country. The preliminary rounds take place throughout the world, which theoretically should make them more accessible to a wider audience, and a number of MLB’s greatest international talents first gained fame on the Classic’s stage.
So why is it nearly impossible to find in-depth information on the WBC? What is the fate of the World Baseball Classic beyond 2017? Would changes to the tournament give it greater success, and is it even worthwhile to implement those changes? Why have they considered ending the WBC after this year?
Reporting to you now from 2026, I’m blown away by how different things are. There is no shortage of content or information about the WBC; many of the game’s biggest stars are competing; there were exhibition games all over the world against MLB teams. Heck, you can watch the games with relative ease and even hear some good announcers while you watch! It is an unmitigated joy to witness global baseball elevated in this way.
Here at LL, our intent is to create some game threads for the tournament, where you can caterwaul to your heart’s content about anything from Eduard Bazardo facing Andruw Jones’ son, Fernando Tatis Jr. looking radiant in the República Dominicana colors, Cal Raleigh catching Tarik Skubal or any number of other beautifully absurd WBC phenomena. But in the meantime, we thought it might be helpful to assemble a one-stop shop for all your WBC links and information. Enjoy!
- Brilliant Meet at the Mitt podcast listener Josh was inspired by our WBC talk in the latest episode and created this incredible site that allows you to easily click on an MLB team and see which players will be playing for which countries – and to then see what players might be playing on any given day. Plus a link to Gameday for said game. PLUS which network the game is being broadcast on!
- It’s truly amazing.
- Since this is a volcano blog Mariners site, here’s a quick (there are 16, tied for first-most in MLB, plus two in the pitching pool for later play, italicized) list of M’s players and their teams.
- Pedro Da Costa Lemos – Brazil
- Josh Naylor – Canada
- Guillo Zuñiga – Colombia
- Michael Arroyo – Colombia
- Julio Rodríguez – Dominican Republic
- Luis Castillo – Dominican Republic
- Charlie Beilenson – Israel
- Dominic Canzone – Italy
- Miles Mastrobuoni – Italy
- Dane Dunning – Korea
- Andrés Muñoz – Mexico
- Randy Arozarena – Mexico
- Dylan Wilson – Netherlands
- Abdiel Mendoza – Panama
- Cal Raleigh – USA
- Gabe Speier – USA
- Eduard Bazardo – Venezuela
- Jhonathan Diaz – Venezuela
- Since this is a volcano blog Mariners site, here’s a quick (there are 16, tied for first-most in MLB, plus two in the pitching pool for later play, italicized) list of M’s players and their teams.
- Pool play began March 4 and runs until March 11. Quarterfinals and semifinals happen March 13 to 16 and the championship game is on March 17 at 5 p.m. PT. Here’s a simple link to the schedule.
- Pool A (San Juan, Puerto Rico): Puerto Rico, Panama, Canada, Cuba, Colombia
- Pool B (Houston): USA, Brazil, Italy, Great Britain, Mexico
- Pool C (Tokyo): Japan, Chinese Taipei, Korea, Australia, Czechia
- Pool D (Miami): Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Netherlands, Israel, Nicaragua
- You can keep track of the standings here.
- Curious about the rules within the tournament? Here’s a remarkably thorough breakdown of everything from player eligibility, to pitch limits (because yes, there are pitch limits. Gotta protect from The Sog), to tie break scenarios.
- Michael Clair, of MLB.com, has been covering baseball on a global scale for many years now (including a brilliant book about Czechia’s magical 2023 WBC run) and has a great archive of articles and is an excellent follow on whatever your preferred platform may be.
- Need some background music to get yourself jazzed for the WBC? Great news, they just dropped their first-ever WBC Soundtrack.