MLB Scoop

Major League Baseball announced Tuesday that the format for the 2009 World Baseball Classic would remain the same and that the same 16 countries that entered the tournament in 2006 would return for the 2009 version. The MLB raised, however, the faint hope that the WBC could be expanded in 2013 to include 24 countries.

Why move so slow, Major League Baseball? With the World Baseball Classic only occurring every four years — not every two like Cuba suggests — delaying the inclusion of more nations unnecessarily slows the progress of baseball on the international scene. Moving to 24 nations would be very easily done. All it would take would be to add one extra round, between the 8 new teams and the 8 teams that did not make it past the first round last time. Finding 8 additional nations is not difficult work. Here are the most obvious candidates:

Israel

Putting together a WBC team for Israel is fairly easy work. There are a number of current and recent major league players as well as minor league players eligible to represent Israel. These include Brad Ausmus, Mike Lieberthal, Shawn Green, Ryan Braun, Kevin Youkilis, Ian Kinsler, Jason Marquis, Jason Hirsh, John Grabow and Scott Schoeneweis, according to Wikipedia. Essentially any Jewish player can represent Israel.

Nicaragua

Pitchers Devern Hansack and Vicente Padilla are among the Nicaraguans in the Major Leagues, and there are a number of players from the Central American nation in the minors, including Giants pitching prospect Wilbur Bucardo and Mariners pitching prospect Juan Ramirez, who each made Baseball America’s list of top 30 prospects for their teams.

Colombia

Major Leaguers Orlando Cabrera and Edgar Renteria would have to fight over who gets to play shortstop for Colombia. Minor league top prospects from Colombia include Diamondbacks pitching prospect Emiliano Fruto, Braves pitching phenom Julio Teheran, and Rays OF prospect Fernando Perez.

Brazil

While Brazil has fewer prospects in the minors, they have Heitor Correa, top 30 pitching prospect for the Phillies, and other major league teams such as the Yankees have recently added Brazilian baseballers to their farm system.

Spain

The Division de Honor de Beisbol is one of the best baseball league in Europe, featuring former major leaguer Yoel Hernandez, and a roster of players can be assembled from it.

Germany

Major League players with German backgrounds can compliment players from the baseball Bundesliga much like Mike Piazza and his fellow Italian-Americans supplemented a roster of Italian players in the 2006 WBC, and will likely again in 2009.

Ireland

Not so much for the talent playing in the Irish Baseball League, though players from there should be considered and represented on the squad, but a team could likely be assembled fairly easily from Irish-American players in the major and minor leagues. Glancing through the major league and minor league rosters shows a myriad of Irish surnames, some of which are attached to players eligible to represent the Emerald Isle.

Greece

They just put together a team for the 2004 Athens Olympics and could do the same again.

Other options would include France, Russia, Great Britain, the Philippines, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, El Salvador, France, Belgium, Sweden and the Czech Republic.

Australia, Canada, China, Taiwan, Italy, Netherlands, Panama and South Africa would clearly have an edge over any 8 teams added to the WBC, and there’s a good chance those 2006 first round bounces would all make it through to the next round. However, the exposure of being featured in the WBC would be great for the game in the new 8 countries chosen.

Waiting until 2013 to introduce a 24 team scenario is all together too unambitious by the organizers of this tournament. As I pointed out previously, there are ways of including more teams in this tournament to better promote the sport around the world, without putting undue strain on the 8 second rounders from 2006 (USA, Japan, Korea, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Mexico & Puerto Rico) that feature the top players in the world. If there was going to be another WBC in 2011, I could understand going slower. However, four more years is too long to wait to fully leverage baseball’s single most powerful way to promote the globalization of the game.