Breaking Down the WBC: Pool A

The “World Series” is a misnomer — the final round of MLB playoffs only determines the best team in America/Canada. The true “World Series” is the World Baseball Classic, where the top baseball teams from all across the globe compete.The WBC isn’t like Olympic Baseball, where only the best amateurs compete — instead, countries draw on the best professional talent tied to the nation, and assemble powerhouses of teams to compete with one another.The first round of the WBC consists of four pools of four teams who compete in a round robin tournament. The top two teams from each pool move onto the next round. For the next week, I’ll be ranking each WBC team, pool by pool, to see who might be best poised to make it to the next round. Teams are sorted from 1st to 4th by their ability to contend in the WBC. Up first? Pool A.

1. South Korea

South Korea will run out their best talent for this WBC. Ace SP Gwang-hyun Kim and RP Seung-hwan Oh will do their best to carry South Korea into the finals. Unfortunately, the lack of MLB talent (Only Oh currently plays in the majors) means that South Korea might be over-matched against upper tier teams, but make no mistake: South Korea can still hang with the rest.

2. Israel

Israel’s team has a surprising amount of talent— almost everyone on the team has played at least minor league ball in the US, and there are a few major leaguers on the squad as well. None of the names are really head-turning — 1B Ike Davis had a few solid years for the Mets, IF Danny Valencia quietly had a great season last year, and 3B Ty Kelly bounced back and forth between the majors and minors in 2016 — but this team still has a good amount of talent, and given how the rest of the pool is built, this team might be able to eek into the second round.

3. Chinese Tapei

The Chinese Tapei team also suffers from a lack of MLB talent, but according to the International Baseball Federation, they’re the number 3 team in the world. Despite the hype, and consistent top finishes in other tourneys, they’ve always appeared over-matched in the WBC, never finishing above 8th. It doesn’t look that good for the Chinese Tapei team this year either: Their professional league has announced a boycott of the WBC team, and some Taiwanese professional teams are not sending players to the team. The team itself seems solid, with IF Chih-Hsien Chiang and Twins prospect RP Kuo Hua Lo, but this team will have difficulties competing.

4. The Netherlands

The Netherlands may not sound like they might have that much of a baseball team, but thanks to some quirky international laws, they can run out some prime Latin-American talent. Curaçao, a tiny island nation off the coast of Venezuela, is a constituent country of the Netherlands, and thus players born here can play for the Netherlands in the WBC. 8 of the Netherlands’ currently announced roster of 12 hail from Curaçao, including SS Andrelton Simmons and utility IF Jurickson Profar. Also on the team are AL All-Star SS Xander Bogaerts and Yankees SS Didi Gregorius. Despite the plethora of infield talent, the Netherlands team lacks depth at other positions, which might be what costs this team a bid to the second round.