World Baseball Classic is Right Idea, Wrong Time
WBC Competition Belongs After Post-Season
Baseball's exclusion from the Olympic Games was a curious decision based on the popularity of the sport in numerous nations in various corners of the globe. The World Baseball Classic fills the necessary void with a true international championship competition.
Right Competition, Wrong Time
Pitting the baseball-friendly nations against one another every few years is a concept that makes a great deal of sense. Having the competition take place in the spring before the MLB season begins just doesn't.
Injuries are an inevitable part of any sport, and baseball is certainly no exception. Spring in baseball has always been the time of year for players to slowly build their stamina, arm strength, and get into the swing of building bodies up for the rigors of a 162-game schedule.
Major league general managers to a whole will likely not publicly admit they don't wait their players playing full-out before the MLB exhibition schedule has even truly kicked into gear. Play a few innings, get in some cuts, and get back on the bus before sunburn sets in. Tweaked hammies and such are the worst injury they wish to see.
Worlds Teams' Rosters Not Fully Loaded
Fans have seen full evidence, that at the very least, the U.S. roster is not complete with every player it could field, due to paranoia over injury. Players making millions of dollars, and holding the playoff hopes of their MLB teams in their hands, will not be blank-check material for the WBC teams with nothing truly at stake. Perhaps one day the WBC will be seen as a grander and more-established tournament. Right now it is not quite the high-stakes it could be one day. With apologies and kudos to Japan for its repeat victory, this is not going to be seen as an undisputed superiority over the world stage.
With pitchers on pitch counts, position players not in full practice and injury paranoia running rampant while nervous GM's hold their breath and say a few Hail Mary's, it's clearly not the best baseball that could be played. That's not to say the games are low quality, and they certainly have been exciting -- but it's not the same as what could occur later in the calendar year with the potential for "dream teams".
Move the WBC to November
With apologies to Derek Jeter, a World Baseball Classic occurring in November is the obvious choice, a week or two after the World Series is over.
Players for teams which did not make the playoffs would be well-rested and/or healed from late-season injury. Even the stars for the World Series participants would have a chance to recuperate. GM's of the respective WBC teams would have an opportunity to see a season's body of work to determine who should be on the roster. If an injury were to occur during the WBC, the player would have an entire offseason to recover and rehab, rather than derailing the upcoming season.
Better Baseball Viewership in Fall
Having a baseball championship occur during the middle of March Madness is not the way to ensure high interest or television ratings. Holding a championship during a championship makes no sense. You will never outrank the NCAA's.
Quite frankly, people are not in a full baseball frame of mind in February and March. Sure there's an outside interest in individual players of fans' respective favorite teams, but baseball is still not a front-burner mindset in the throes of winter.
Outside of college hoops, there's the playoff push in both the NBA and NHL to keep fans interested, as well as offseason moves and draft preparation in the NFL.
Push the WBC to November, and the NBA/NHL schedules are in their infancy, with only the Sunday NFL to compete with. More importantly, baseball is fresh in everyone's minds. With a few more weeks of hardball, it carries us all a hair deeper into the fall while we wait for the hot stove to begin cooking offseason moves.
Let's hope they reconsider the timing and make a worthy competition all that it can be.
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