The WBC Preamble Starts

They’ve announced the first wave of players to commit to the upcoming World Baseball Classic (the baseball World Cup to me and you) and it makes interesting reading.

For starters the Canadians have themselves a team that would be OK in the Majors with a particularly strong pen with Gagne being set up by Jesse Crain, Rheal Cormier and Paul Quantrill although the only pitcher of note in the rotation looks to be Jeff Francis (who actually won’t be at altitude for a change) and the line-up seems to be counting on Justin Morneau and we all know what that did for Minnesota this year.

When you look at the Italian roster you can’t help but be reminded of the Greek Olympic team which was basically comprised of people with loose family links and Greek sounding names. Quite frankly Mike Piazza is as Italian as apple pie (and as useful as one defensively too). Even with this approach I doubt the likes of Frank Catalanotto and Mark DeRosa will do too much to really boost the mostly domestic based side the Italians will field who are among the best outside the Americas.

Puerto Rico will have a decent offence with Beltran, Delgado and Pudge Rodriguez (apparently Alex Rodriguez hasn’t committed to a nation) and the defence should be equally solid but the pitching lacks any established closer or a front line starter unless Joel Piniero returns to the form of a couple of years ago (and even that’s a stretch).

Venezuela has Johan Santana with K-Rod as security and the likes of Bobby Abreu and Melvin Mora providing the offence and the likes of Omar Vizquel and Carlos Guillen providing excellent D up the middle but the real story is the powerhouses brought forward by the Dominicans and America. The U.S. has eight established closers including lefties Billy Wagner and B.J. Ryan, four starters with Cy Young Awards on their CV (Buerhle, Peavy, Pettitte, Dontrelle Willis and Ben Sheets would be a great rotation as it is) and a line-up that could have the likes of Carl Crawford and Michael Young at the top of the order and any of Bonds, Berkman, Eric Chavez, Junior Griffey, Chipper Jones and Mark Teixeira to drive them in. The scary thing is that the Dominican Republic could be even more dominant offensively with Manny Ramirez, Albert Pujols, Vlad Guerrero, David Ortiz and Miguel Tejada. Their pitching depth might not be as good although Pedro and Colon will provide an excellent one-two punch and Francisco Cordero, Jose Mesa and Alfonseca in the pen (Alfonseca’s presence will also see that the Dominicans will have more fingers than any other team).

Little seems to have been disclosed about Japan (apparently the Asian teams are waiting till the end of the week) although Ichiro has said he wants to take part and of course we still aren’t sure if the Cubans will fully commit to the whole enterprise.

Of course closer to the tournament we will go into more depth as rosters are confirmed and we’ll start really seeing who the movers and shakers will be but I have to admit I was highly sceptical that this many high profile players would involve themselves in this tournament and I am glad to have been proven wrong. This is already looking like the great exhibition we’ve always wanted and hopefully with the right exposure the gospel of baseball will be spread far and wide and the profile of the sport will be boosted like that of basketball after the first Dream Team.