When the World Baseball Classic was first played in 2006, there were 16 teams and in 2009 those teams returned. It wasn’t until the 2013 tournament that other teams were considered as four of the teams that had been included each year, South Africa, Canada, Panama and Chinese Taipei were made to play for their spots in a qualifying round the before. In a bit of an upset, Brazil and Spain took the places of Panama and South Africa respectively with Canada and Taiwan maintaining their positions.
With another tournament coming around in 2017, the first games of the 2016 qualifying round will begin at 9:00 PM, February 10th with Australia taking on New Zealand in Sydney. Australia has always had a guaranteed spot in the tournament, but with Chinese Taipei advancing to the second round in 2013, the Aussies have been placed on the bubble. For this round, the Phillipines and South Africa will also play in the Australia bracket.
Indians fans should generally be most excited about the South African team as pitching prospect Kieran Lovegrove will eventually look to become the first Major League player to be born in South Africa. Unfortunately, he is currently rehabbing from off-season surgery and is unable to play in the qualifiers. He did play for them in 2012, despite being just 18 years old and, if South Africa were to win, he has shown interest in playing for them again in the 2017 WBC. Another player of note on the South African roster is middle infielder Gift Ngoepe of the Pirates, who made it to AAA for the first time in 2015.
Another familiar name will be playing for New Zealand as one of their two Major League affiliated players is left handed pitcher Nick Maronde who was purchased by the Indians in 2014 from Los Angeles and has spent time in both Akron and Columbus each of the last two seasons. As the only Indians player in this particular tournament, Tribe fans can’t go wrong by rooting for the Kiwis, particularly considering their underdog status and the fact that two of their players are regularly soft ball players and one is a former BMX rider.
The Australian team isn’t necessarily the favorite, but does feature some Major League talent in Travis Blackley and Ryan Rowland Smith. Of their 28 rostered players, 26 have at least spent some time in the minor leagues and as participants in each WBC to this point, they should be the next most familiar team.
The Philippines are the most unknown team from the American point of view as just one player ever from the island chain has played in the Majors (Bobby Chouinard from 1996 through 2001) and very few of the players were ever affiliated with the Majors Leagues. One who was, however, is short time Indian reliever Clay Rapada, who was born in Virigina, but is coming out of retirement to play for his ancestral homeland.
This tournament will take place from Wednesday through Saturday in the short six game tournament. All games will be streamed for free on MLB.com and WorldBaseballClassic.com with three being shown on MLB Network as well. While three of these games will be taking place between midnight and 6 AM Eastern time, the other three, including the championship game, will start at either 9 or 10 PM.
The other three tournaments upcoming will be March 17th-20th in Mexicali and Panama and September 22nd-25th in Brookyn. In the first, team Mexico must win to retain their spot against the Czech Republic (home of Indians MiLB catcher Martin Cervenka), Nicaragua and Germany, all of whom played in the 2012 qualifiers, but none of whom have played in the actual WBC. In Panama, the home country will play against the reigning WBC contender Spain, as will France and Colombia. Finally, in Brooklyn, Brazil (birth country of Indians catcher Yan Gomes) will defend it’s recently earned WBC spot against Great Britain and Israel, who are returning from the 2012 qualifiers and Pakistan, who is replacing Thailand (who went 0-2 and were outscored 20-2 in 2012). This is pretty far down the line still, but could be an intense series to wrap up the qualifying rounds.
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