Joe - interesting ideas - I would prefer to keep it at 16 teams, but open up the field for different countries to qualify through pre-tournaments. The previous event's 8 quarterfinalists should get a free ride into the next event and other interested nations should have to qualify through local tournaments. As the other 8 countries are generally not made up of MLB players (Canada's lineup notwithstanding), it should be easy enough to get their amateurs to participate fully in these tournies. I used to play in the Israeli men's league and half of my team were starters on the Israeli national team. Every now and then, they would go to Europe for tournaments (I think Germany was the big powerhouse there). Many other European countries have semi-pro teams that would be at least as competitive as Italy (without the ringers), South Africa, China, etc. The more countries that could qualify, the more interest the sport will drum up and the bigger the pool of athletes baseball will compete for.

Nothing to lose, everything to gain.

I'm not sure you can do a qualifying round without more countries wanting to participate. That would drive the need to do qualification. Remember that baseball was just kicked out of the next Olympics because not enough countries field teams. If other European countries wanted in on the WBC, that would drive the need for a tournament where Netherlands and Italy have to qualify for example. Does France have a team? England? Germany? Russia? I think you have to first raise the interest in these countries before you can do something like this.

Even though I know this will never, EVER happen (and is basically a non-starter idea...), I'd love to see the WBC as a two-week event. However, I'd like to see it replace the All-Star game in years that it's played (would anyone really miss the All-Star game once every four years?!). And to extend the All-Star break to two weeks, the season would be shortened to 154 games during WBC years.

The downside to this (setting aside that MLB would NEVER pare down the schedule to 154 games, even if it's only once every four years...) would be I'm not sure how you keep non-roster players sharp during that two weeks. But ultimately, I don't know that a two week break is really going to be THAT detrimental to professional ballplayers, and the rust would be shaken off within a couple of days of resuming play.

I doubt Bud would ever be able to mandate "traditional" double-headers, the owners are never going to give up the revenue. But I've been thinking that double-headers, whether sold as one ticket or two, would be great for the inter-league part of the schedule where one game would be played under National League rules and the other under American League. In non-WBC years this can shorten the schedule a bit to avoid having the World Series extend nearly to Thanksgiving, and in WBC years makes up for the late start to the season.

I'd like to see the Czech Republic in the WBC. I studied in the Czech Republic for 3 months 2 semesters ago. Met some American Baseball players there (I assume they weren't good enough to play in the minors).

But recently I saw that the Indians signed a 16 year old from the Czech Republic. He'll play in the CR and Australia during the summers until he graduates.

I agree that we could see some better competition if central european countries got involved. Is it really better to market to South Africa than central Europe?

I like your ideas, Joe, and I like rawagman's qualification as well. It might be wishful thinking to hope the WBC turns into the World Cup (soccer is way more popular worldwide, after all), but whoever said there was something wrong with dreaming?

The issue with qualifying tournaments would be MLB/NPB players being available for them. If teams aren't even releasing pitchers for the actual tournament, I can't imagine them doing so for qualifiers.

HonusCobb - that probably won't happen for awhile, but if teams like Italy and the Netherlands continue to do well in the WBC, it should only help baseball in Europe. I think if we had a 32 team 3 week tourny with 8 pools (not likely to happen, but since when is more baseball a bad thing) it would really help to include countries like the Czech Republic and other European teams, along with allowing more Latin American teams lieke Colombia, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica into the WBC.
rawagman - Having an Israeli team I think would be really cool, and I'm not even Jewish, but for some reason I'm worried that suddenly we might have to worry about terrorism if they do well, which wouldn't surprise me at all. Israel always seems to overperform at world sporting events.

Joe, I like the idea of qualifiers as well. Right now, South Africa has no reason to get excited. They didn't do anything to get in other than have a large population that seemed to be a good opportunity for MLB to market towards.

If they qualified, though, that's an achievement. And achievements are excited and get people interested. Chattanooga earned the right to a #16 seed last night, and they have virtually no shot to even win a game in the tournament. But I would have loved to have been on that campus last night.

I think the WBC actually has it right using a double-elimination system over a round-robin system.

In a round-robin tournament, you invariably get some games at the end of the round where one or even both participants don't have any incentive to win the game. The double-elimination tournament they're using now prevents that.

I think this is a bit of a chicken and egg problem. What incentive do countries have to establish qualifier leagues if there's no guarantee that their team would be in the WBC, and thus, get the worldwide exposure?

In the meantime, the Olympics also includes undercompetitive and marginal teams. Those undercompetitive teams though do draw interest in their home countries, thus increasing the strength of the program. If countries are disqualified outright, you run into a bit of a BCS problem where teams that are competitive don't get a game at the big table. Also, as they say in a short series, anything is possible and one of those rare upset wins just might be enough for a country to increase its ability and focus on baseball.

The only other thing I could suggest is something like a tiered system. There are 16 total spots. Award 10 of those spots where baseball has been deemed "well established and competitive", like the USA, Cuba, Japan. Award 1 spot to the country that ranks highest in the Olympics without having a spot, another spot to the Pan Am games, another to the Caribbean league, and another to the Little League World Series (why not if it generates interest?). For the last two spots, conduct a mini-WBC the year prior to the WBC inviting any countries without slots to compete, and the best two records get the last two slots.

As an alternative, you could split the mini-WBC over the two preceding years and award one spot each year. That could drum up more interest (and resources) for baseball in those countries.

In any event, I think it'd be a good idea to keep the number of teams, but move some qualifiers to the year prior and/or use established tournaments like the Olympics and the Pan Am teams to generate more interest.

I like the 12-team concept and qualifying process, but the tournament is just pure fluff and not worth holding--unless each country can put forward its best players, including pitchers. Otherwise, teams drawing from a deep pool of accomplished players have a huge advantage. Canada, for instance, suffered greatly this year from the absence of its best pitchers.

The only way to accomplish this is to hold the tournament during the regular MLB season. Start the season a week earlier, do not play an All-Star game that season and break for three weeks starting in late June. Mandate that teams cannot hold back pitchers unless on the DL. Have MLB cover the insurance costs of its players.

Do this once every four or six years. Only then would the tournament be a true world classic. Only then would comparisons to the World Cup have real meaning.

Joe, not to be snarky, but do you still stand by this column now that the Netherlands has upset the D.R. not once but twice, joining Canada among the surprise eliminations? We've already seen more upsets in the "15 vs. 2" vein in this year's WBC than we did in all of 2006; doesn't that justify the larger field?

Joe, one comment I have after being to the past few games in Toronto (Sun, Mon, Tues) is how the compressed schedule is really punishing to the more fringy teams that don't have a ton of depth in the bullpen even if they have a couple of elite starting pitching talents to anchor the staff.

For example, in Venezuela vs USA, the relievers after Galarraga was out of the game were all guys with 5.00+ ERA's and 1.5+ WHIP's (often more Walks than K's) in the Mexican League. Those were the guys the USA teed off on to run out to that big lead.

Similarly, Italy (correctly) went all-in with it's lefties and Grilli against Canada and really had nothing left against Venezuela after their starter was out of the game. Again, that's when the game was broken open.

The sharp talent drop-off really made it hard to watch at times. I'd rather see things hinge more on the performance of the best talents than what kind of performance you get from the 12th guy on the staff. They're softer on the teams in October than this.

Seems to me qualifying rounds run counter to the goal of increasing baseball's exposure and popularity,

People in countries where the game is in its infancy are much more likely to watch if their team's playing; and their athletes are more likely to choose to play baseball if there's some prospect of near-term reward and recognition.

The current format has to change. Look at what's going on in the Mexico City pool. If Australia loses tonight to Cuba, they play Mexico in an elimination game. After beating Mexico by 10 runs, Australia got to play Cuba, while Mexico was gifted with a game against RSA. The difference between Cuba and RSA is like comparing the Red Sox to a Single A team.

The gap between the #1 seed and the #4 seed is so large that its hugely unfair to have the #2s s not playing the same quality of opponents.