Saturday, March 23, 2013
Freeman was set to play for Canada
(www.torontosun.com)
But does he know the lyrics to ” Let’s Go to the Mall” or the “Beaver Song”?
“LAKE BUENA VISTA, FLA. - How many national teams can boast having a suitable replacement for an MVP winner?
Had Joey Votto’s knee prevented him from playing in this month’s World Baseball Classic, Atlanta Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman was ready and willing to wear the maple leaf.
“I told the players association to make sure they let the WBC know that both my parents were born in Canada,” Freeman ...
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1 2 3 4 >In summary, what each team needs to advance:
Chinese Taipei: Win vs. Korea OR
Australia beats Netherlands OR
Loss to Korea by 3 runs or less
Netherlands: Win vs. Australia
Korea: Win vs. Chinese Taipei by 4 runs or more OR
Win vs. Chinese Taipei and Australia beats Netherlands OR
loss to Chinese Taipei and Australia beats Netherlands by 6 runs or fewer
Australia: Win vs. Netherlands by 7 runs or more and Chinese Taipei beats Korea
Australia certainly has the facilities to host a qualifier. I don't know anything about Chinese stadiums, but I'm sure they could build something if they wanted to.
But do they really want to have 2 qualifiers in Asia - which probably means sending 3 European teams over there? Make China or Australia come to the Americas or Europe, and play at inconvenient times? (Granted, a lot of the Australian team is playing in the U.S. during the regular season.) Put both of them in an Asian qualifier? (Highly doubtful.)
Like I said, getting way ahead of everything, but it's something to think about.
I know China has some stadiums, although they did demolish the main Olympic baseball stadium in Beijing. However, I'm sure any qualifier in China, no matter where in China it is, would probably require a bunch of logistical things (with the government) that wouldn't be happening somewhere else, so I'd have to guess China would be far less likely than Australia to host a qualifier.
Like you said, we're way ahead, but I'm guessing Australia would probably take roughly the place that Taipei had, in a pool with New Zealand, the Filipinos and Thailand. China is far more likely to be in a situation like South Africa or Canada was in, having to go somewhere else to play.
Assuming that Italy and Spain are the other two, I'd guess it'd be something like this (working on it):
Sydney, Australia (w/ AUS, NZ, Philippines, Thailand)
Some neutral location (w/ China, South Africa, Israel, UK)
Nettuno, Italy (w/ Italy, Germany, France, Czech Republic)
Some South American country like Panama, Colombia or Nicaragua (w/ Spain, Panama, Colombia, Nicaragua)
Yeah, that's why I had the "Some South American Country" on there.
Dickey vs. Mexico
Vogelsong vs. Italy (with Detwiler possibly coming out of the bullpen)
Holland vs. Canada (Lefties vs. Lefties)
with Gio Gonzalez starting game 1 of round 2, should USA advance.
Yeah, I didn't see your post, but I think you have it right (unless Spain can avoid finishing last).
The tiebreak is run differential in common games, right? So far in common games (assuming a NED and KOR win) is:
Taipei +5 (8-3 win over NED)
NED 0 (8-3 loss to Taipei and 5-0 win against KOR)
KOR -5 (5-0 loss to NED).
So a 4 run win by KOR still leaves them in last place (among the 2-1 teams). A 5 run win and everybody is at 0, but maybe the funky run differential divided by innings will come into play.
Thursday the Puerto Rico and US pools start playing. There's games on at 3 (eastern time), 6:30 and then at 10 there's a game from the Tokyo pool.
And the various teams from those pools will be playing exhibition games on Tuesday and Wednesday, which also will help.
Robbie Cordemans (Netherlands) vs. Dushan Ruzic (Australia)
Tao Bu (China) vs. Oscar Nakaoshi (Brazil)
Won Jun Chang (Korea) vs. Yao-Hsun Yang (Taipei)
I'm guessing the attendance for those first two games added up won't even equal 10% of the last game, but, hey, that's what is expected with the Asian brackets.
0.22
...and Ruzic plays in the Hoofdklasse. Wonder if that would be an advantage since some of the Flying Honkbalers have seen him before.
Crap, I had my DVR rewound a bit without knowing it, I was about to yell at you for what I thought was an unannounced delay in the broadcast.
What's sad is that this happens EVERY TIME they do this in Asia. Unless the local team is playing, nobody shows up. You'd think MLB would get the hint by now and either suggest putting some of the non-marquee matchups in smaller stadiums (similar to how two games with Italy are going to be in a spring training stadium instead of Chase Field) or lower the prices of non-marquee games.
I think it has to do with the heterogeneity of most Asian societies, I guess, mixed with the middle-of-the-day timing.
It's not just Asia. Canada vs Italy drew 12,411 in Toronto. The final game in that pool (Venezuela vs US) had just over 12,000 watching. Canada vs USA drew over 40,000 but no other game in Toronto drew over 13,000. Skydome looked really empty for most of those games.
Although on that I'd partially place the blame on the double-elimination format. The only game everybody KNEW was going to go on were the games on day one. Actually, that's one of the problems with double-elimination: you don't know what teams you'll see when you buy the ticket, and, unlike semi-finals or finals, there's a chance you might end up seeing a crappy matchup. Similar stuff happened in the double-elimination round of the '09 WBC.
On a positive note, the lowest attended WBC game at Marlins Park will be more than the highest attended Marlins game...
To be fair, the crowd of 88 that saw Cuba-China probably is higher than the highest attended Marlins game...
That's true, I'd forgotten about that (and Canada's ignoble defeat at the hands of Italy) until after I'd posted. Still, it's safe to say that early-round WBC games are not a draw without some sort of hook.
Give us an idea of how big a "10" is, percentage wise....
it is being widely reported that the MLB crew is completely messed up in Taiwan in quite a few ways , one of it is the messed up guns. the Miles gun is anywhere between 3 to even 5+ miles slower than the local KM gun or the guns the MLB scouts are bringing. interview with the scouts says they're seeing a lot of 90mph + and some mid 90s pitch from Kuo / Yang / Chen. so essentially, add at least 4 to what you see on screen .
I dunno, I missed a few minutes.
A fine performance by the greatest Dutch pitcher to (almost) never leave Holland.
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