Rumor Roundup: Setting... (03/06)
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March 6, 2013 The Lineup Card6 Ways We'd Change the WBC
1. Make it a Four-Day Tournament to Replace the All-Star Game Why not just make the WBC an eight-team single-elimination tournament? It can be run in July replacing the All-Star break and game, and you'll get to see most of the same players—in midseason form. Pick two different cities on either side of the country to host the quarterfinals and semifinals and to exploit the time zone differential. On Day 1, there are two games at 1:00 and 7:00 in each park (or whatever works for TV). On Day 2, the semifinal games would be played at night. On Day 3, it's a travel day to the city hosting the final on Day 4, in prime time. —Russell A. Carleton 2. Make Qualifying Rounds True Double-Elimination In all three other qualifying pools, it didn't matter, since the zero-loss team beat the one-loss team in the championship game. So apologies for this sounding like a homer rant. It shouldn't be surprising that a tournament that's ultimately decided on a pair of best-of-1s values expediency over having the best team win, but in the qualifying rounds, they should take the time to play one more game if necessary. —Zachary Levine 3. Make the Best Players Play 4. Allow Countries with No Baseball Experience to Participate So I’m pro-WBC, but I’m not much more likely to, well, watch it than I am to tune in to a given game in the Grapefruit League (though I am hoping to see some WBC action on a trip to Arizona this weekend). There’s no easy fix for my apathy. I can’t come up with a solution to raise the stakes—the tournament will always take a backseat to the regular season—but I can think of one way MLB could make me want to watch: permit countries with no professional baseball presence to participate. Yes, this would lower the quality of play, but that’s precisely the point. We all have plenty of experience watching bad baseball players play each other; most of us have been those players. What we rarely see is bad baseball players playing really good baseball players. That makes it hard to tell how good major leaguers really are, since they’re always squaring off against other major leaguers, or something close to it. Well, I’m sick of seeing supremely talented athletes throw 98-mph fastballs with movement to other, equally gifted athletes who somehow manage to hit them hard. Instead, I want to see someone look like me out there, cowering at the sight of Craig Kimbrel. And that’s something that can happen only if the WBC opens its doors to the cream of the extremely thin crop from countries that have hardly heard of baseball. Micronesia, come on down. It’s a facetious suggestion, but it would work for me. If you’re still not persuaded, think of it this way: It’s the closest baseball could come to Cool Runnings. Feel the rhythm, feel the rhyme. Get on up, it’s baseball time. —Ben Lindbergh 5. No More Petty and Shallow Complaints About the Tournament The exposure and spread of baseball is a positive for professional ballplayers, period. It means more leagues to play in and more money to make. Belittling the tournament because it's an "exhibition" and "manufactured" is shooting the sport in the foot. So let's stop. —Larry Granillo 6. Re-Name it the World Honkbal Classic, and Have Vin Scully Call the Action First, as Ian Miller expertly pointed out on Tuesday, "honkbal"—the Dutch word for "baseball"—is tremendously awesome. If the tournament's broadcasters were required to mention the word "honkbal" several times per inning, I might tune in. But such a fantastic word deserves a fantastic voice to pronounce it. Thus, I propose that Vin Scully be given full reign of the World Honkbal Classic game-calling duties. Aside from allowing viewers around the world to hear one of the greatest broadcasters of all-time, isn't it fun to imagine the bits of trivia and anecdotes Scully might dig up for countries like Team Israel and Team South Africa? —Stephani Bee
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"Belittling the tournament because it's an 'exhibition' and 'manufactured' is shooting the sport in the foot. So let's stop."
I hate the WBC because it makes me sick. Imagine if you were paying a guy $500,000 or $5MM or $17MM to be in training camp starting on February 25 so he can prepare (pursuant to instructions from the coaches and trainers you're paying) to help your team in its first game on April 1 and the 161 games after that. How would you feel if he said, "Thanks for the money, I'll take it, but instead of being in camp getting ready to help your team, I'm going off to play in a manufactured exhibition." I wouldn't think you were being minor or petty if you were not happy about it.
In many jobs, you get paid a salary and are still allowed to do things like attend conferences and/or publish papers that might not necessarily be work-related but are related to your industry. Same concept with baseball. Playing in the WBC doesn't directly help their team but it does help the sport and also helps the player grow. It's little different than Apple sending a programmer to an IT conference.
My guess is that Apple sends the programmer to the conference to make the programmer a more productive and valuable employee.
Yeah and if a team bars a player from playing, it may lead to animosity when contract negotiations come up. Meanwhile, if a team lets a player play, it increases their happiness i.e. "job satistication". Besides, teams send players to the WBC for the marketing opportunity which could lead to merchandising and/or future international recruits.
I wouldn't think that marketing opportunity would confer enough of a benefit to outweigh the negatives of not having my players in my camp getting ready to help my team win games, but that's just my perception.
Look at how much the Yankees have profited in terms of merchandising and player acquisition from their international reputation.
Or, consider the Mariners. Though they had a Japanese owner, they didn't get a stream of Japanese players or fans until they signed Ichiro. They didn't sell much international merchandise until Ichiro, etc.
Besides, when the players are training for the WBC they're going through some of the same hitting/pitching/fielding drills and general workouts that they would be doing with their major league teams. Baseball's not like football or basketball built on team rhythm or memorizing formations or the like... So players are still getting ready, they just aren't doing it "with their team".
I'm not dismissing "international reputation" generally, I just wonder if having my players in the WBC is a major factor therein. Ichiro was a Mariner and they surely benefited in many ways from his international stardom, but what role did the WBC play in that? If Ichiro eschewed this year's WBC, would the Yankees see a discernible drop in their brand's international presence?
As to having players in camp, I disagree as to its value. Sure, they don't have to learn a playbook, but if there wasn't any value in it, players would just "get ready" at home and report to the stadium on Opening Day. If I were an owner, I'd want my coaches and trainers calling the shots in my players' preparations and conditioning. I'm paying them salaries, and being in camp is part of the job description as far as I can tell. But I'm not an owner, so WDIK?
The WBC is still too young to see what the full implications of it are. However, if countries are building stadiums and televising baseball, it makes sense that a kid in those countries could latch onto a favorite player from the WBC and start following their major league career.
Being in camp is part of their job description, but so is public outreach. Signing autographs after games, going to fan conventions, playing in exhibitions in Japan, etc. Again, it's a salary position and it's not like players are not doing team-related activies once the season ends.
Owners and teams do have legitimate concerns, but if the risk outweighed the reward, I'm sure they'd figure out some way to deny all player participation or limit it to just fringe players of their organization. They seem to handle the risks and think there are rewards just like they do for winter ball/Carribbean World Series or the AFL.
Come to think of it, the only big difference between the WBC and winter ball is the timing, right?
I'm not talking about "once the season ends." I'm talking about Feb 26 (or whenever the contractually-obligated reporting date is) through the last game of the season or post-season.
From what I've read they all have a "no jumping out of airplanes" clause (or in Jeff Kent's case, no washing your pick-up truck) governing their off-season activities, but I would think I'd be okay with my players playing in a winter WBC, as long as my pitchers weren't throwing 150 pitches a game or whatever.
So yes, the big difference is the timing.
Actually, Kent's clause was "no riding motorcycles".. but when he broke his wrist riding a motorcyle, that's where he lied and said he was washing his truck.
For a stroll down memory lane... http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1171962-20-most-ridiculous-contract-clauses-and-incentives-in-mlb-history
Right, that's what I was referring to with my "no washing your pick-up-truck" joke.
Here's an article by Ken Rosenthal about some of the ways the WBC is benefitting the teams and baseball in general, especially in the absence of baseball as an Olympic sport.
http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/world-baseball-classic-needs-to-be-embraced-by-gms-managers-players-crucial-to-growth-of-game-022813
Rosenthal doesn't even address the key issue, i.e., the obligation of the players to do the job for which they are being paid.
And his last non-single-sentence paragraph is idiotic:
"So really, the U.S. loses on every level when its stars decline to participate. The reluctance of aces such as Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw and David Price is understandable, given the fragile nature of pitching. But position players such as Buster Posey and Prince Fielder? And youngsters such as Mike Trout and Bryce Harper? C’mon."
"Fragile nature?" Buster Posey's re-constructed knee is comparatively "durable?"
As a claims adjuster I am in fact allowed to take time off from handling claims to attend conferences and seminars because they allow me to earn continuing education credits which keep my license in force. This is not an exact parallel because my attending a conference doesn't impair my ability to perform for my company they way missing spring training does for a pitcher, there's no risk of injury as there is for a pitcher, and the benefits of my attending the conference accrue to my company, not to the general welfare of the insurance industry.
I'm a tigers fan first so I am glad that my favorite player chose my team (and the team that pays him >$20M /year ) over a PR stunt in other countries, and if the writers of BP have an issue with that I need to know now so I can cancel my subscription before the next billing period.
The irony of it is, the thesis is flawed. Non american fans don't care about seeing the best players, they care about seeing their teams beat america. Sending a US super team would make it less competitive and temper interest, not increase it.
But all baseball is manufactured, so I don't entirely understand why one manifestation of it is inherently more repulsive than another. Professional baseball came about because business leaders in Cincinnati were tired of watching their local team lose all the time, so they went out and bought the best players across the country. That was completely manufactured, yet it ended up leading to something pretty amazing.
I was just referring to the quote in the article re: "manufactured exhibition." Whether MLB can be defined as "manufactured" is beside the point, which is that MLB players leaving their teams' camps to play in the WBC is repulsive to me. But hey, that's just my perception, everybody's got their tastes and preferences, etc.