What is Going on With the World Baseball Classic?

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This is a very niche thing to blog about, since international baseball is not very popular and has struggled to gain any kind of momentum for some reason, or a number of reasons to be more accurate. I'm not here to talk about that though, I'm here to ask what the heck is going on with the 2023 World Baseball Classic (WBC)? 


The WBC is sort of baseball's attempt at a World Cup-type tournament, except it has not been as successful and it is not as historic. The first one was in 2006, and in four tournaments, Japan has won two with the Dominican Republic and the United States each winning one. There was supposed to be a tournament in 2021, but COVID hit, so now it is in 2023. As such, lots of news about who will play and who the coaches will be is coming out now. 

The players aren't anything that shocking, Mike Trout is in for the U.S., Trevor Story is in, and I'm sure other stars will likely declare their interest soon. What I'm curious about is why on Earth so many broadcasters are being given management jobs with teams. It started when Eduardo Perez was put in charge of team Puerto Rico. Perez is a color commentator for the New York Mets and ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball. 

He has some experience as a coach in the MLB, holding the titles of hitting coach, bench coach, and first base coach (not at the same time). He also was the manager of Colombia for the 2013 WBC qualifiers but was not very successful. Now he's the general manager of team Puerto Rico, the 2013 and 2017 runners-up? It's just a little weird.

The one that really makes no sense to me is the appointment of Mark DeRosa as TEAM USA'S MANAGER. This makes absolutely ZERO sense. I'm sure Mark DeRosa is a nice guy. He's a pretty decent analyst. The fact of the matter is, he has NO MANAGERIAL EXPERIENCE. We're talking about the defending WBC champions, the United States of America National Team, and we're talking about Mark DeRosa as the manager????

 

For reference, the guy at the helm of the 2017 championship team was Jim Leyland. Leyland, in comparison to DeRosa, won the 1997 World Series with the Florida Marlins, took the Detroit Tigers to the World Series twice in 2006 and 2012, and is a three-time manager of the year. Am I not seeing something here? How did we go from a highly-decorated, veteran MLB manager to an MLB Network Analyst with no experience?


Well, we also need to consider that MLB Network is highly involved in the broadcasting and promotion of the tournament. So, now my concern is that the tournament will be less about displaying the highest quality of international baseball there is and more about promoting networks. I really want the WBC to be successful. Behind the World Series, it's probably my favorite event in baseball. 

I really hope that when I'm 50 years old, I'll be preparing to watch the 2051 WBC and it will have worldwide recognition and importance. My fear though, is that if we start going down the path it looks like we're going down, I'm going to be a serious candidate to manage team USA at the 2051 WBC (to be clear I am NOT qualified to do that). I guess we'll see!

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