Maybe El Presidente will take the hill for Nicaragua. You know it's going to be hostile when Brazil is the safest and most civilized country in the group.
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Ugh...accidentally closed a big post. Anyways, here's my projected Canada lineup:
3B Brett Lawrie
CF Michael Saunders
1B Joey Votto
DH Justin Morneau
LF Jason Bay
C Russell Martin
RF Adam Loewen
SS Taylor Green
2B Pete Orr
SP Ryan Dempster
Other SPs: Scott Diamond, Erik Bedard, Jeff Francis, Scott Richmond
RP: John Axford, Phillipe Aumont, Jesse Crain
Bench: George Kottaras, Jimmy van Ostrand, Rene Tosoni
Good team. Really good team if the shaky starting pitching holds, and at least one of Morneau/Bay rediscovers their swing.
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Ugh...accidentally closed a big post. Anyways, here's my projected Canada lineup:
3B Brett Lawrie
CF Michael Saunders
1B Joey Votto
DH Justin Morneau
LF Jason Bay
C Russell Martin
RF Adam Loewen
SS Taylor Green
2B Pete Orr
SP Ryan Dempster
Other SPs: Scott Diamond, Erik Bedard, Jeff Francis, Scott Richmond
RP: John Axford, Phillipe Aumont, Jesse Crain
Bench: George Kottaras, Jimmy van Ostrand, Rene Tosoni
Good team. Really good team if the shaky starting pitching holds, and at least one of Morneau/Bay rediscovers their swing.
A good team but far from great. They're going to have to get hot in order to compete with the big boys.
In hockey they'd be Slovakia.
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I'm a bit late here but Brazil beat Panama 1-0 to advance to the WBC. Who are these guys? They beat Panama twice in Panama City.
So the groups are out. Each group is a tround robin tournament. Then the top 2 in Group A and B and the top 2 in Group C and D get put into a double elimination tournament to determine the semifinalists.
WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC (MARCH 2-19, 2013)
POOL A (Fukuoka Dome - Fukuoka, Japan)
JAPAN
CHINA
CUBA
SPAIN
POOL B (Taichung Baseball Stadium - Taichung City, Taiwan)
SOUTH KOREA
NETHERLANDS
AUSTRALIA
TAIWAN
These two groups advance to GROUP 1 (Tokyo Dome - Tokyo, Japan)
A1
A2
B1
B2
POOL C (Hiram Bithorn Stadium - Hato Rey, Puerto Rico)
VENEZUELA
PUERTO RICO
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
BRAZIL
POOL D (Chase Field - Phoenix, Arizona)
UNITED STATES
MEXICO
ITALY
CANADA
These two groups advance to POOL 2 (Marlins Park - Miami, Florida)
C1
C2
D1
D2
Top Two teams from POOL 1 & POOL 2 will advance to the semifinals (AT&T Park - San Francisco, California)
Winner 1 vs Runner-up2
Winner 2 vs Runner-up1
Final (March 19)
Last edited by GirlySports; 12-07-2012 at 01:26 AM.
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No Bedard, Francis, Dempster, Diamond. Shawn Hill is the only starter I see on the list at first glance. Just brutal.
On the plus side (for me anyway), 35% of the team are graduates of the BC Premier League (Morneau, Saunders, Lawrie, Green, Loewen, Mathieson, Van Ostrand, Gillies).
__________________
"For thousands of years humans were oppressed - as some of us still are - by the notion that the universe is a marionette whose strings are pulled by a god or gods, unseen and inscrutable." - Carl Sagan Freedom consonant with responsibility.
I am not so worried about our pitching. Our bullpen will be fine with Axford, Henderson, Aumont and Crain.
So as long as we can get a serviceable 3-4 innings we should be ok. Since this tourney is in March, Pitchers have a HUGE advantage over hitting. It takes a hundred AB's or so to get into the swing of things, and for a lot of hitters they will still be getting used to tracking the ball this early in the spring
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Was hoping Jameson Taillon or James Paxton would have pitched for Canada because SPs (and maybe middle IF) is the weak point.
Hopefully Dempster steps up he has been pretty disappointing... I understand his concerns about form but if he can get insurance for his contract really what does he have to lose, he'll be at work in camp anyway.
The American roster and even Canadian roster shows why this tournament is a joke. If you are not coming close to get the best players come then why should the majority of fans care?
Didn't Japan win the last one? They are no way the best baseball country in the world and may not even be top 5.
The American roster and even Canadian roster shows why this tournament is a joke. If you are not coming close to get the best players come then why should the majority of fans care?
Didn't Japan win the last one? They are no way the best baseball country in the world and may not even be top 5.
USA and Canada might be the only 2. The other 14 teams have their best.
Nothing can fix bad American attitudes.
Dominican Rep, Venezuela and Puerto Rico are stacked with major leaguers! One of them will get eliminated in the first round.
Actually if I were to bet now, I'd put money on Venezuela to win it all.
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I thought him and another guy didn't want to play because they thought it would be tough to play against the US or their birth country depending on which team they played for but obviously Pujols changed his mind.
2013 World Baseball Classic Thread
