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WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC 2023


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Go down the list and Japan was the better team in this tournament. The toughest team the US beat in the WBC was Venezuela. Japan basically cut through everybody they played. Japan sent a Japan series winning manager to handle this job. The US sent a TV talking head.

The Angels are gonna be even more screwed when Ohtani leaves them and they're back to Trout as their cornerstone guy.

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Maybe, Mike Trout is The Man Called Sting of Baseball.

On the surface, Trout and Sting are really awesome, but they could both get dinged for things that he's not entirely responsible for (The Angels not building around Trout, WCW being a mess for most of Sting's times on the top)

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3 hours ago, Cobra Commander said:

Go down the list and Japan was the better team in this tournament. The toughest team the US beat in the WBC was Venezuela. Japan basically cut through everybody they played. Japan sent a Japan series winning manager to handle this job. The US sent a TV talking head.

Health problems aside, would Terry Francona have been the best pick to manage Team USA if we were really going to take this seriously? 

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23 minutes ago, cubbymark said:

Health problems aside, would Terry Francona have been the best pick to manage Team USA if we were really going to take this seriously? 

I would be shocked if an active MLB manager went off to manage any WBC team. It would be asking for trouble at home if his actual team struggled during that season.

The US managers before DeRosa were Buck Martinez in 2006 (who managed for the Blue Jays in 2001-02), Davey Johnson in 2009 (two years before he spent 3 years with the Nationals), Joe Torre in 2013 (three years post-Dodgers), and Jim Leyland in 2017 (four years post-Tigers). Of those four, Buck Martinez was the only one that wasn't in his 60s/70s during the tournament.

Your best unemployed managers in baseball right now are, in no particular order, Joe Maddon, Joe Girardi, and then the name recognition of available managers probably drops unless you're up for "Ned Yost, Team USA Manager" or you think that Tony LaRussa isn't a total fossil (he is).

Paul Molitor and Don Mattingly are two of the most recent winners of Manager of the Year awards who are unemployed. Mike Shildt also won that award and got bounced from his job anyways.

(edit: just realized there's a butterfly effect from the Astros scandal to the 2023 Team USA manager.. Astros Scandal meant Beltran never managed the Mets, instead Rojas managed the team for 2 years, and he was replaced by Showalter. If Showalter was unemployed, he seems like exactly the type of ex-manager who would fit in with Leyland/Torre/Davey)

Of course I leave out one elephant in the room which is "if you're bringing in a former manager, it better not be a guy who'll drive off any potential players" (Maddon managed Trout, Shildt managed the eleventy billion Cardinals on the roster, Girardi managed some of the Phillies before getting fired, who knows how fond stars are of their recent ex-managers)

Maybe DeRosa got picked because he didn't have enemies, and that approach might work for political candidates but DeRosa just seemed clueless once things got rolling. Like he needed someone on the coaching staff with more managerial chops than Jerry Manuel to help him through his first 7 games as a manager of anything.

Edited by Cobra Commander
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I was at work when the game was going on but keeping track on Amazon Prime and the WBC site. Couldn't really cheer but when Ohtani struck out Trout a shiver went through me.

Every single Japan WBC so far scored a 40 plus in the TV ratings in Japan. The semi-final "only" got a 42.5 (with a high of 47.7) due to it being in the morning even though it was a national holiday - had it been during prime time (or golden time as it's called in Japan) - it probably would have gained the highest baseball rating ever (a Yomiuri Giants/Chunichi Dragons game at the end of the 94 season that determined the league champion that got a 48.8). The quarterfinal with Italy got close with a 48.0. And this is not including the numbers from Amazon Prime so it's very likely that half the country was tuning into the games.

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Both teams hit two solo homers.

The difference ended up being that RBI groundout in a bases loaded situation. Not a big grand slam, but the correct fundamental approach.

I am deeply pleased by this.

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