The Cycle, Spoke #1: WBCitement!

A quick dispatch from The Cycle in anticipation of the World Baseball Classic.

Greetings Cyclists!

So, it’s been a minute.

When I put The Cycle on pause last June, I said I hoped to publish “occasional dispatches,” but I have not done so . . . until now. My apologies. It turns out I needed a complete decompression. I stopped using Twitter in November and made other moves to simplify my life somewhat over the remainder of 2022. The good news is that those decisions have had many of the anticipated benefits, and, with the 2023 season approaching, I’m making some moves to put myself back out there to some degree. I am not getting back on Twitter (though I may use it purely as a promotional tool when appropriate, as I did Monday morning, tweeting for the first time in three and a half months). And, I’m sorry to say, I’m not starting The Cycle back up in any kind of reliable way. However, if you don’t mind the inbox clutter, I do think I will try to issue some of those long-ago promised dispatches.

I’m reaching out today for two reasons, both of them selfish, both related to the same topic: the World Baseball Classic. I’m very excited about the return of the WBC, which I have enjoyed since it’s inception in 2006. I covered (from afar) the 2009 and ’13 WBCs for SI.com, and the 2017 tournament for Sports on Earth, and I’m happy to announce that I will have a trio of articles on this year’s World Baseball Classic up at Baseball Prospectus. So, reason number one for my reappearance in your inbox is to promote the first of those pieces, which is about why I’m so glad to have the WBC back. It’s called “What’s So Great About the WBC,” and it doubles as a sort of preview of the tournament. BP subscribers, be sure to check that out.

Reason number two is that I wanted to provide you (and myself, that’s the selfish part) with a viewer’s guide to the tournament. That follows below.

Otherwise, I continue to write the free, daily MLBTR Newsletter, which goes out weekday mornings (subscribe here), and I continue to appreciate the support you all gave me during the initial run of this (now free) newsletter and have a new appreciation for those who stuck around to get this (and hopefully future) dispatches.

On with it . . .

2023 World Baseball Classic: A Viewer’s Guide

Format

This year’s World Baseball Classic will be the fifth staging of the international tournament, and it’s a little bit different every time. One of the big changes this year is that the field has been expanded from the customary 16 teams to 20. The 16 participants in the 2017 tournament all automatically qualified for this year’s WBC. In order of 2017 finish, they are the defending champion USA, runner-up Puerto Rico, Japan and the Netherlands, who lost in the semifinals, the Dominican Republic, Israel, Cuba, Venezuela, Australia, South Korea, Colombia, Italy, Mexico, Chinese Taipei (Taiwan), Canada, and China.

The four additional teams in this year’s WBC were determined by a qualification tournament held in Germany and Panama last fall that featured 12 teams. The eight that didn’t make it were France, South Africa, New Zealand, Pakistan, Argentina, Germany, Spain, and Brazil. The four that did were Panama, Nicaragua, Great Britain, and the Czech Republic (the last of which is giving off major 1980 USA Hockey vibes via coverage like this piece from MLB.com’s Michael Clair and this one from The New York Times David Waldstein).

As in all previous tournaments, play begins this year with the teams split into four pools, each in a different location. Each pool will include five teams this year, as opposed to the usual four. As in 2006, 2013, and 2017, each team will play each of the others in its pool once, and the top two teams in the resulting standings will advance.

Additionally, this year, the top four teams in each pool will automatically be entered in the 2027 WBC, while the last-place team will have to return to the qualifying tournament. Ties will be broken by the teams’ head-to-head results.

The next biggest change this year is that, instead of a second round of pool play, the eight teams that advance out of their initial pools will be placed directly into a single-elimination bracket. So, they go straight from pool play to the elite eight, with one pool’s winner facing another’s runner-up in that round. The tournament thus concludes with seven win-or-go-home games in seven days from March 15 until the final on March 21.

Pool Play

Here are the four pools along with when and where they will play (all dates in this section are local time for that pool):

Pool A: Chinese Taipei, Cuba, Italy, Netherlands, Panama

Where: Taichung International Stadium, Taichung, Taiwan

When: March 8–12

Pool B: Australia, China, Czech Republic, Japan, South Korea

Where: Tokyo Dome, Japan

When: March 9–13

Pool C: Canada, Colombia, Great Britain, Mexico, United States

Where: Chase Field, Phoenix, Arizona, USA

When: March 11–15

Pool D: Dominican Republic, Israel, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Venezuela

Where: loanDepot Park, Miami, Florida, USA

When: March 11–15

In the first eight days of the tournament (give or take a few hours due to the games taking place on opposite sides of the globe), these 20 teams will play a total of 40 games. Of those 40, these are the ones likely to be most worth watching (all times, and dates, here are Eastern Standard Time, note that some are early a.m.):

• Tue, March 7: Cuba @ Netherlands, 11pm ET, FS1 (the first game of the tournament . . . tonight!)

• Fri, March 10: Korea @ Japan, 5am ET, FS1

• Sat, March 11: Dominican Republic @ Venezuela, 7pm ET, FS1

• Sun, March 12: Venezuela @ Puerto Rico, 7pm ET, FS1

• Sun, March 12: Mexico @ USA, 10pm ET, FS1

• Wed, March 15: Puerto Rico @ Dominican Republic, 7pm ET, FS1

Though all of the games listed above will be on FS1, some others will be on FS2, FOX, and Tubi.

The Final Bracket

Because half of the teams need to travel half-way around the world to participate in the semifinals and finals, the first Quarterfinal will be played in Toyko before the final four games in Pools C and D in the U.S. Here’s the schedule for the seven games the elite eight will play (if all goes well, I will have more on these games in this space next week, though the overlapping schedule could complicate that):

• Wed, March 15: Quarterfinal: Pool B runner-up @ Pool A winner, Tokyo Dome, 6am ET, FS2

• Thu, March 16: Quarterfinal: Pool A runner-up @ Pool B winner, Tokyo Dome, 6am ET, FS2

• Fri, March 17: Quarterfinal: Pool C runner-up @ Pool D winner, loanDepot Park, 7pm ET, FS1

• Sat, March 18: Quarterfinal: Pool D runner-up @ Pool C winner, loanDepot Park, 7pm ET, FOX

• Sun, March 19: Semifinal: March 15 winner @ March 17 winner, loanDepot Park, 7pm ET, FS1

• Mon, March 20: Semifinal: March 16 winner @ March 18 winner, loanDepot Park, 7pm ET, FS1

• Tue, March 21: Final: March 19 winner @ March 20 winner, loanDepot Park, 7pm ET, FS1

Who To Watch

The three top teams in the tournament are likely to be the USA, Dominican Republic, and Japan. That’s not surprising. Japan won the 2006 and ’09 WBCs and has never fallen short of the semifinals. The Dominican Republic won the 2013 tournament and was a semifinalist in 2006. Team USA won the last WBC in 2017 and was a semifinalist in 2009. The only other teams to make multiple semifinals have been Korea (in 2006 and ’09), and Puerto Rico and the Netherlands (both in 2013 and ’17). Korea made it to the 2009 finals. Puerto Rico made it to the 2017 finals. The Netherlands has never made it past the semis and has generally been considered an overachiever in each of the last three tournaments.

Team USA is absolutely stacked on offense, with Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, Paul Goldschmidt, Nolan Arenado, Trea Turner, Pete Alonso, Kyle Schwarber, J.T. Realmuto, Kyle Tucker, and a bench full of additional All-Stars. Their pitching lacks that same elite star power, however.

The Dominican Republic just lost Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to knee inflammation (he’s still on track to make Opening Day for the Blue Jays), but still has Manny Machado, Juan Soto, Rafael Devers, Julio Rodríguez, Teoscar Hernández, Ketel Marte, Wander Franco, Willy Adames, Eloy Jiménez, and Nelson Cruz, among others, Sandy Alcantara and Cristian Javier heading up the rotation, and a deep, if not elite, bullpen.

The names on team Japan will be less familiar, with a few exceptions, the most notable being Shohei Ohtani. Japan will also feature Yu Darvish, new Red Sox right fielder Masataka Yoshida, and the Cardinals’ Lars Taylor-Tatsuji Nootbaar appears likely to start in center field. Those players are all worth watching, but two names you may not know that you should are Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the 24-year-old ace of the Orix Buffaloes, and 23-year-old third baseman Munetaka Murakami, who slugged .711 with 56 home runs for the Yakult Swallows last year. Both are expected to be posted by their respective teams in the coming seasons, as is Team Korea center fielder Jung Hoo Lee, who hit .349/.421/.575 for the Kiwoom Heroes last year. Korea’s roster also includes Padres infielder Ha-Seong Kim, former Cardinals lefty Kwang Hyun Kim, former Twin ByungHo Park, and K.H. Kim’s former Cardinals teammate Thomas Hyunsu Edman.

Venezuela boasts Ronald Acuña Jr., Jose Altuve, Luis Arraez, Andrés Giménez, Salvador Perez, Gleyber Torres, Pablo López, the Astros’ Luis Garcia, and many more in a roster almost entirely comprised of major leaguers. Puerto Rico is managed by Yadier Molina, has 2017 WBC MVP Marcus Stroman (who switched sides to honor his mother after pitching the U.S. to the title six years ago), the Díaz brothers (Edwin and Alexis) in the bullpen, and Francisco Lindor and Javier Báez in the middle infield.

Mexico’s lineup is comprised entirely of current major leaguers, such as Randy Arozarena and Rowdy Tellez, and has Julio Urías atop its rotation. In addition to stars Xander Bogaerts and Kenley Jansen, the Kingdom of the Netherlands’ roster includes some familiar faces, such as infielders Didi Gregorius and Andrelton Simmons, the top remaining unsigned free agent in MLB, Jurickson Profar, former Nippon Professional Baseball home-run champ Wladimir Balentien, and three sets of brothers: Jurickson and Juremi Profar, Jonathan and Sharlon Schoop, and Josh and Richie Palacios. Speaking of unsigned players, former Yankees and Twins catcher Gary Sánchez will split time behind the plate for the D.R. with the Rays’ Francisco Mejía.

Perhaps most significantly, for the first time active major-league players will be playing on the Cuban team, with White Sox Luis Robert and Yoán Moncada anchoring the Cuban lineup, while more marginal Cuban major leaguers such as Andy Ibañez, Roenis Elías, and Ronald Bolaños are also on the team. That roster also includes a 37-year-old Yoenis Céspedes and Cuban, Nippon Professional Baseball, and WBC legend Alfredo Despaigne, who, in a 19-year career that has spanned the globe, has hit .308/.403/.569 with 443 home runs, not including his record of seven in WBC play.

Elsewhere, watch for Freddie Freeman on Team Canada, Joc Pederson on Team Israel, and other familiar major-league faces in unexpected places, as players can play for their parents’ home countries or countries where they would be eligible for citizenship due to their ancestry.

Rules

Major League Baseball’s new rules for 2023 (the pitch clock, limitations on shifting and disengagements with the rubber, the larger bases) will not be in effect in this year’s WBC, nor will there be a limit on mound visits. However, the three-batter minimum, universal designated hitter, automatic runner in extra innings, and replay rules will all be in effect, as will a mercy rule that will end the game if a team leads by 15 or more runs after the end of the fifth inning or by 10 or more runs after the end of the seventh inning. Position players will not be allowed to pitch. Japan’s Shohei Ohtani is designated a two-way player and can thus both pitch and hit.

The most unfamiliar rules in the WBC will be those governing pitcher workloads, though the resulting short stints for starters and heavy reliance on bullpens is much more common in MLB today than it was when the tournament started 17 years ago. Here’s the breakdown:

• Pool Play: 65-pitch maximum

• Quarterfinals: 80-pitch maximum

• Semifinals and Finals: 95-pitch maximum

• Pitchers cannot pitch on three consecutive days.

• Pitchers must take a day off after throwing 30 pitches in a game.

• Pitchers must take four days off after throwing 50 pitches in a game.

Pitchers are allowed to finish a plate appearance if they hit their limit while pitching to a batter. Some may also have additional restrictions placed on their workloads by their regular-season teams.

Okay. That’s enough from me for today. Here’s hoping you all enjoy the WBC as much as I plan to.

As always, you can write me by replying to this email or drop a comment below.

Now, here they are, your closing credits: