U.S., Puerto Rico battle to reach WBC finals

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Dominican Republic had one of the best teams in the World Baseball Classic. The Dominican Republic won the World Baseball Classic. It doesn’t sound so surprising when you put it like that.

If the goal of the WBC was to promote international interest in the game in specific countries, Puerto Rico was probably the country that could have benefitted the most from a win -- it’s a country with a strong baseball tradition in need of some help. There are a lot of reasons for the decline of baseball in Puerto Rico. Basketball is taking over there, which seems like something that would happen after international sanctions. A little Caribbean pride and bragging rights from the WBC would have gone a long way.

SAN FRANCISCO -- It should have been a good omen for the Dutch. All Monday night, in the cold wind, rowdy fans honked air horns.

Even though the horns were being honked by Dominican fans, you would have been excused if you thought they were ushering in a new era of honkbal.

They’re calling it the Greatest Catch of 2013, which I suppose it probably is. Whether it will remain the Greatest Catch of 2013 after we’re, oh, two or three weeks into April ... well, I’ve got my doubts. But still, it’s pretty impressive (and yes, there were the inevitable Bartman references, but there’s not a lot we can do about that) ...

SAN FRANCISCO -- By now, you’ve probably seen or read a few different articles or tweets about the Decline and Fall of the United States Baseball Club, or Why The Exit of the United States Means Something, or Maybe Buster Posey Should Just Move to Russia or Whatever. Team USA will not be in the finals for the third straight World Baseball Classic, and there’s something of a scramble to see if this means something.

For the best explanation of why it probably doesn’t, Ben Badler of Baseball America has it covered. Small-sample gremlins are at work, of course. The U.S. had a fantastic roster, but they couldn’t hit Nelson Figueroa. And at some point this season, the Astros will beat the team that will eventually win the AL pennant. Baseball!

In case you missed it, Angel Hernandez is in midseason form.

Strike. It was the ninth inning, with the tying run on third. If the Dominican team had lost, this would have been a huge deal. Hernandez got a little lucky.

For the first time in my life, I wanted to break out in song after a Buster Posey strikeout.

Usually, I want to break out into song when Posey hits a home run, or throws a runner out, or looks over his shoulder to get the sign from his third-base coach, or is on TV, or when someone on TV says “just hoard cozies.” But this time, it was one of Posey’s strikeouts that got me. It was a fastball looking, and while they didn’t have the velocity reading at the stadium, it got to the plate in a hurry. I’m embarrassed to say that I was unaware of who was pitching until that moment.

Again, I’m not saying David Wright deserves a truly great nickname like Captain America after two or three games of heavy-hitting. It’s probably just a bit too early for something like this. But considering the history of Team USA, the actual (fictional) Captain America, and Wright himself, it seems like he’s one hell of a candidate.

Excelsior!

• Celebrating the Awful Trades, Vol. I

It looks like in every World Baseball Classic, a random, little-known player from a team we don’t normally get to watch will capture the imagination. In 2009, my guy was Gift Ngoepe, who starred for South Africa. He hit back-to-back triples against Mexico, flying around the bases like a player with 90 speed on the 20-to-80 scale. Who was that helmeted man? Turns out he was in the Pirates’ system, and while he’s not much of a prospect right now, he was more than a little raw when he signed. There’s still time.

(If you want to hop on the badwagon, read this profile in Sports Illustrated. Gift Ngoepe winning the World Series for the Pirates is kind of a personal dream of mine, too. Just not in 2012, like he hoped.)

Summarizing those (at least) three ways:

I’m skeptical about all three of these supposedly devastating ways, because they also seem exceptionally USA-centric. Which is typical of the coverage in this country, of course. But again, it gets back to this: Who is this event really for? If you assume that it’s largely for U.S. baseball fans, then yes: a loss to America’s Hat might have hurt a little. On the other hand, maybe it would have served as a bit of a jolt to both the players and the fans, and resulted in more interested in the first round, the next time around.

PHOENIX -- The great thing about managing poorly is that you’ve got a pretty good chance of winning anyway, especially if your opposite number is also managing poorly and especially if you’ve got the far better team. Which goes a long way toward explaining why Joe Torre’s not going to be the first manager of Team USA who didn’t guide his club out of pool play in the World Baseball Classic.

Sunday, Torre mismanaged just about every way you can mismanage. In the end, it didn’t matter because he was managing a far superior lineup against a pitching staff that included two legitimate major-league pitchers. There probably just wasn’t anything that Team Canada manager could have done.

So it looks like, once again, Team USA: World Police will be notable for the absence of some great starting pitchers. All because of a bunch of ninnies are afraid of getting hurt, or something. Right?

Huh. I wonder if @MLB_PR will be re-tweeting this FanGraphs study:

I love the World Baseball Classic.

There’s no shame in that. I’ve seen snarky tweets and comments about the approach of the WBC, but I’ve bought in to the whole thing. It’s baseball. Not only that, but it’s the kind with boisterous crowds and worldwide attention, and it shows up in a month when baseball shouldn’t mean anything. It’s a free play on the pinball machine of life. More baseball. Look at the crowd in this clip:

Nashville, TN-- Joe Torre held a press conference Monday afternoon at the Winter Meetings to discuss the World Baseball Classic (WBC), and his involvement as Team USA’s manager. When asked why he was returning to managing for the first time since his 2010 season with the Dodgers, he said that the WBC was a lot like having your grandchildren--you have them for three weeks, then it’s over.

Earlier this week, Torre announced a dream team of a coaching staff, including Larry Bowa (bench coach), Marcel Lachemann (bullpen coach), Gerald Perry (hitting coach), Willie Randolph (third-base coach), Dale Murphy (first-base coach), and Greg Maddux (pitching coach).

Lachemann is the only coach on the staff with previous experience leading Team USA, having coached the squad for the 2006 World Baseball Classic and 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

The 2013 WBC kicks off in early spring, the first round taking place from the March 2-10. Team USA will begin the tournament in Phoenix, Arizona, in Pool D, where they will take on Mexico, Italy, and one other team yet to be determined.

Are you looking forward to the 2013 World Baseball Classic? (Sure you are. You love baseball. You’ll watch as much baseball as you can.)

If you’re excited about this tournament, which will be held in March 2013, you’ll be able to watch every game of it -- providing you have access to MLB Network, which announced via press release Tuesday it’ll be carrying the entire tournament:

The World Baseball Classic is awesome. Did you realize there was a guy named Sneideer Santos playing for France? Of course there is. There’s also a guy pitching for Spain who was born in 1963 -- the same year as Mike Greenwell, Bobby Bonilla, and Cecil Fielder. He throws 89.

You know you want to watch. And now the schedule is out, confirming that the bulk of the action will be in March, when you’re already baseball-starved, you probably will watch. The schedule, along with the venues:

Japan, the country that won the first two World Baseball Classics in 2006 and 2009, had threatened non-participation in the 2013 version due to a dispute over sponsorship and licensing revenue.

It’s been reported by the Associated Press that this dispute has now been settled:

Last month, Japan’s baseball players’ union voted against participating in the World Baseball Classic; the issue was their desire for a bigger cut of tournament revenue.

Negotiations are continuing, but they are not going well, according to Nikkan Sports. If you click on that link, you will find it’s in Japanese. Patrick Newman sums it up succinctly:

The World Baseball Classic started as a cockamamie idea in Bud Selig’s noggin, but it’s turned out to be quite the sucess. The last two finals were held in San Diego and Los Angeles, respectively, and in 2013, the powers that be are sticking with California, awarding the semi-finals and final games to San Francisco and AT&T Park.

The World Baseball Classic used to be held every three years, before the International Baseball Foundation switched the format to every four years. The 2013 games will be the first since 2009, which were won by Japan for the second consecutive tournament. The finals were held at Dodger Stadium in front of over 54,000 people -- a near sell-out.

Uh-oh. This doesn’t sound like good news.

With the third World Baseball Classic scheduled for next spring, it seems that Japan’s participation is far from assured. As Jason Coskrey writes in the Japan Times tomorrow, the Japanese players’ union has voted against playing in the WBC. Unanimously: