<![CDATA[With the Asian half of the World Baseball Classic just underway, it's time to take a look at those in the Western hemisphere. Both pools C and D will start off on March 9th with Canada facing the Dominican Republic at 6:00 PM EST in Miami, Florida and Mexico and Italy starting off three hours later in Jalisco, Mexico. Here's how the two groups shake out.
Pool C: Canada – Dominican Republic – USA – Colombia
As in every pool, there are two clear favorites to move on from the Miami bracket, the United States and the Dominican Republic. The Dominican will bring back a few players from their 2013 championship winning team including MVP Robinson Cano as well as Carlos Santana and ace Sam Deduno. While Deduno hasn’t pitched in the Majors since 2015 thanks to hip surgery early in 2016, he was dominant in the 2013 tournament with a very nice 0.69 ERA in three starts. Also included in the DR pitching staff are Edinson Volquez, Carlos Martinez, former MLB closer Fernando Rodney and current non-closer Dellin Betances. In all, this is a team that should compete with the elite around the world for the 2017 WBC title.
The most disappointing team in tournament history has to be the US, where lack of interest has lead to rosters far less talented than they should have been and a 10-10 overall record. That could finally turn around this year as the pitching staff includes Chris Archer and Marcus Stroman to start with Andrew Miller and David Robertson to finish. Many hitters on the roster should also be included among the best at their position on the planet including Giancarlo Stanton, Paul Goldschmidt, Ian Kinsler, Nolan Arenado and Buster Posey. This team is a juggernaut and if they can’t at least make it into the final game, they may be better giving up their spot in the tournament to Nicaragua.
Going against those two All-Star stacked squads are Canada, who have went 3-5 and never made it past the first round, and Colombia, who will be playing for the first time this year. Making things more difficult for our neighbors to the North is that their top player, Joey Votto, has decided to stay in Arizona to get ready for the Reds run on the NL Central this year. Without him, team Canada is filled with players who used to be good (Justin Morneau, Eric Gagne), were never good (George Kottaras, Andrew Albers) and many who never will be good. In the end, Freddie Freeman and Dalton Pompey could provide some excitement, but not enough to get them to the second round.
The final entrant to the group was Colombia, who went 3-0 in the qualifiers to beat out Panama in Panama. While their offense isn’t imposing, the one, two starting rotation punch of Jose Quintana and Julio Teheran could be enough to make for a bit of an upset.
Pool D: Mexico – Italy – Puerto Rico – Venezuela
For fans of defense, Puerto Rico is the team to watch this entire tournament and, playing in arguably the weakest pool, they are almost certain to advance. Around the infield they feature Yadier Molina at catcher, Kennys Vargas at first, Javier Baez at second, Francisco Lindor at short and Carlos Correa at third. This would be a World Series contending infield defensively and all can hit as well. Add to that Carlos Beltran at DH and a decent pitching staff and you should have a solid team that can at least make some noise in the second round.
Puerto Rico’s first game (March 10th) will be against their biggest competitor in the pool as they play Venzuela and will likely face ace Felix Hernandez. With Salvador Perez behind the plate and an All-Star infield of their own, they will be no pushover. Almost the opposite of Puerto Rico, Venezuela’s infield features many of the best bats in baseball without the Gold Glove defense as Miguel Cabrera and Jose Altuve load up the right side with Victor Martinez as DH. Carlos Gonzalez, Odubel Herrera and Ender Inciarte bring both sides of the game to what should be an explosive outfield. As with Puerto Rico, pitching (after Hernandez) could be an issue in the later rounds as they will likely go up against some of the deeper teams like the Dominican, the US, Cuba and Japan.
While Mexico is still an underdog, they have a greatly improved roster over previous seasons. Gone is Karim Garcia as the only name on the team as Julio Urias, Marco Estrada, Khris Davis, Adrian Gonzalez, Yovani Gallardo, Roberto Osuna and many others will compete. Much like the US where players have forgone the WBC to prepare with their MLB teams in previous seasons, team Mexico has pulled out all the stops this year and should play well enough to avoid having to compete in the qualifiers to earn their spot in the next tournament. It was their disappointing 1-2 finish in 2013 that pushed them to face off against Nicaragua, the Czech Republic and Germany in last year’s qualifiers, but a 3-0 finish without the Major Leaguers listed above should give them some confidence entering the main tournament this week.
Despite going 4-7, Italy has never had to play in a qualifier to earn their spot in the tournament. They’ve only made it to the second round once (in 2013 with a 2-1 record) and were swept once there. More than any other team, Italy is filled with players who were not actually born in Italy as the requirements appear to have been dropped to having a last name that ends in a vowel. With that being the case, catchers Drew Butera and Francisco Cervelli, first baseman Chris Colabello and pitchers Pat Venditte and Luis Lugo are a few of the affiliated players on the roster (none of which were born in Italy). While Puerto Rico and Venezuela should set their goals at winning the whole thing and Mexico should be trying to play spoiler, it will be a pretty successful tournament for Italy if they win a single game. In fact, they should be pretty happy if they don’t get blown out in every single game.
Because each team is only scheduled to play each other team one time (the top two records advance with tiebreakers scheduled for both pools on March 13th if necessary) every single game is important. In particular, the match between the Dominican Republic and team USA on March 11th (6:30 PM EST) should be huge. If either team loses their opening game, a loss here would virtually eliminate one of the top teams in the tournament. No matter how the early games work out, however, the winner will have a distinct advantage going into the second round. The same is true of the opening match-up of Venezuela and Puerto Rico in pool D, although less will be on the line as both teams will have time to recover and win their two games against weaker opponents.]]>
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
