I have zero data other than anecdotal, but it seems there are more injuries in baseball compared to futbol during ganes

wildmen09 said:

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I have zero data other than anecdotal, but it seems there are more injuries in baseball compared to futbol during ganes

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You had Gabriel Jesus go down in the World Cup, whose a Brazilian striker that plays for the top team in the English Premier League. The World Cup is the top prize in Soccer, so regardless of when it is, the top guys go.

Also, it's not typically in the Winter during the season. They did it this time because of the excessive heat in Qatar.

I like that idea a lot, or maybe just semi and final? Where do we submit our proposal?

Someone get Manfred on the phone…

I don't watch a lot of baseball but got pulled into this tournament after Penn State eliminated the Ag's. I had no idea who he was before tonight.

1800FUSTROS…got it

That's a shame…modern day Bambino

The 2023 All-World Baseball Classic Team! pic.twitter.com/haN7F85ebR

— World Baseball Classic (@WBCBaseball) March 22, 2023

The radio is convinced this morning that Japan has passed the USA in terms of talent in the sport

LSCSN said:

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Hate to break it to you, but nobody outside the Astros viewing area cares about Houston. No matter how "good" they are. WBC did wonders for the game worldwide.

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I never said anyone cared about the Astros, only that the Angels will never win anything with either of them and that's a problem for marketing.

If your star players never make the playoff, how do you really market them?

LSCSN said:

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Hate to break it to you, but nobody outside the Astros viewing area cares about Houston. No matter how "good" they are. WBC did wonders for the game worldwide.

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Nobody?

Japan is super competitive and they proved it. But if that game was part of a 7 game series, I think USA wins in 5. Japan's pitchers were mostly unknown to USA hitters, and what makes the MLB so dang good is that the players make adjustments. In a tournament like this, though, Team Japan shines.

wangus12 said:

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The radio is convinced this morning that Japan has passed the USA in terms of talent in the sport

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Japan has surpassed us in that event in terms of their best players wanting to play and win for their country. Overall talent? Nah. I have no idea what the Japanese professional league schedule is nor do I know how long before the WBC they were training for. I do know if the US rolled their best team out there in mid season form, we roll that tournament.

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I do know if the US rolled their best team out there in mid season form, we roll that tournament.

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the dominican team would not be easy to beat with "best team out there in mid season form"

wangus12 said:

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That's not what he's saying. He's saying it's hard to market 2 guys who, no matter how great they are, have spent their careers below .500 and never in the post season. Hard to market guys who don't win games

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For "one of the greatest teams in the history of the sport" you'd think they'd be more recognizable. But they're not. Nobody cares. Ohtani might play for a bottom feeder in America, but everyone knows him.

Something we can all agree on...Manfred and Tony Clark are terrible for baseball.

BMX Bandit said:

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Quote:

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I do know if the US rolled their best team out there in mid season form, we roll that tournament.

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the dominican team would not be easy to beat with "best team out there in mid season form"

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Good point. I still think a healthy USA team with their best possible pitching rotation would win that tournament. Oh well. We will likely never see that scenario play out anyway.

i think US would still be favorite, but it would not be a cakewalk.

AggieDub25 said:

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BMX Bandit said:

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Quote:

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I do know if the US rolled their best team out there in mid season form, we roll that tournament.

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the dominican team would not be easy to beat with "best team out there in mid season form"

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Good point. I still think a healthy USA team with their best possible pitching rotation would win that tournament. Oh well. We will likely never see that scenario play out anyway.

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We'd be the favorites by a large margin, but its baseball. Look how stacked DR was yet they couldn't make it out of pool play.

Agreed. The original response was about Japan surpassing us in talent which is absolutely not true. They have some very good players and likely the best player on the planet right now, but overall talent? I'd have to strongly disagree with that take.

I'd argue that if Kyle Tucker was available and started that game, the US would have won. Again, we will never know, but I'd take that bet.

AggieDub25 said:

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Agreed. The original response was about Japan surpassing us in talent which is absolutely not true. They have some very good players and likely the best player on the planet right now, but overall talent? I'd have to strongly disagree with that take.

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Yup.

We roll up with a handful of these guys - JV, Scherzer, Nola, Wheeler, deGrom, Snell, Cease, Gallen, Fried, Bieber, Burns, McClanahan, McCullers, Woodruff, Gausman, or Strider - and its a whole new story.

It was interesting to hear the postgame crew discuss the differences in Japanese and American baseball.

Arod mentioned that analytics have not yet caught on in Japan and they play an old school style similar to 90s MLB ball. They hit to contact and they pitch with movement. The true outcome approach and the high spin power pitching hasn't taken root there yet.

It's just a different style and while the nuisances aren't there it's a style that places a high priority on just winning and it works well over the short time frame of a tournament like this but probably not so much over a full 162.

Interesting and insightful conversation

Japan has always been better than the United States in this. The USA has only taken it semi-seriously in the last two events. Japan has won 3 out of 5 and never finished lower than 3rd place.

It is likely that Japanese players could flood every level of American baseball if it became necessary or they wanted to. We've seen much smaller countries like the Dominican do that on a fairly large scale. The difference is that the Japanese have their own league, which is very rich, and very successful, and it is a developed country. Every Japanese team likely has a couple to several major league quality players on it, and all of the rest would be playing somewhere professionally here too if their league did not exist.