how did I miss a story saying they are organizing a baseball world cup?
I was reading this story on steroids.. and trying to figure out what the hell they were talking about. at first, I just assumed they meant MLB.. but no, this is for the baseball world cup that they are going to try to have running by this time next season..
although, unless we include our professionals. It just wont be worthwhile.. and doing it in march, makes it semi borderline.
Baseball hopes to hold the first World Cup next March, playing in North America with 8-to-16 national teams.
I've been suggesting this for about a decade assuming it is truly the best players in the world competing.
DarkElf
03-29-04, 03:11 PM
Baseball Prospectus has been running some fun stories/analysis on this. They make several key assumptions:
that players will play for the country in which they were born (not necessarily going to happen). For instance, this puts Dave Roberts on Team Japan, and Danny Graves on Team Vietnam. :)
that all players are willing to play (not going to happen). Like Barry Bonds will play, right?
that only MLB players are being used (since B.P. doesn't deal with foreign leagues in sufficient depth to pick their best players)
and that most of the best players from other countries are already playing in the U.S. In other words, if you only consider MLB players in the analysis, those teams won't be significantly worse than the actual roster, which will undoubtedly include foreign players not in MLB.
Given these parameters, they've determined that only 4 countries have enough MLB players to even fill out teams, and they're pretty easy to guess: US, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Venezuela. They also included a "Team World" in their mix, just to see how the US stacks up against the rest of the world. And they used enough USA players to make 4 USA Teams (Team #1 is the best players, 2, 3, and 4 use progressively "worse" players).
What they determined is that Team USA #1 had the best hitting, and Team World had the best pitching, and combining the two, Team USA #1 comes out on top. In fact, Team USA #2 is better than any other foreign team (edging out D.R.). And even Team USA #4 is better than Venezuela or Puerto Rico.
Using "equivalent" stats to remove ballpark and league factors, we have these rankings, with the numbers showing runs above a team made up of "average" MLB players:
Team USA 1 3.62
Team World 3.22
Team USA 2 2.34
Team D Rep 2.24
Team USA 3 1.86
Team USA 4 1.42
Team Venez 1.00
Team P Rico 0.79
So unless the world teams can significantly bolster their teams with top line MLB caliber players, they don't stand a chance on paper. Except for two things: the assumptions are admittedly unrealistic, and anything can happen in a short series... :)
dancinns
03-29-04, 03:14 PM
This would/will be interesting. I'd love to see a series between Japan and USA.
Red Dog
03-29-04, 03:16 PM
Originally posted by dancinns
This would/will be interesting. I'd love to see a series between Japan and USA.
I'd much rather see US vs P.R. or D.R.
DarkElf
03-29-04, 03:40 PM
Just to whet your appetite, here are some possible starting lineups, just using country of birth:
Dominican Republic
1B Albert Pujols
LF Manny Ramirez
CF Vladimir Guerrero
RF Sammy Sosa
2B Alfonso Soriano
SS Miguel Tejada
3B Aramis Ramirez
C Miguel Olivo
SP Pedro Martinez
SP Bartolo Colon
SP Rafael Soriano
SP Odalis Perez
CL Damaso Marte
RP Octavio Dotel
RP Francisco Cordero
RP Guillermo Mota
Puerto Rico
1B Carlos Delgado
CF Carlos Beltran
3B Mike Lowell (born in P.R.)
C Ivan Rodriguez
2B Jose Vidro
LF Bernie Williams
RF Juan Gonzalez
SS Jose Valentin
SP Javier Vazquez
SP Joel Pineiro
CL J.C. Romero
RP Javier Lopez
RP Kiko Calero
RP Roberto Hernandez
Venezuela
RF Magglio Ordonez
LF Bob Abreu
CF Richard Hidalgo
1B Melvin Mora
3B Miguel Cabrera
SS Alex Gonzalez
C Ramon Hernandez
2B Carlos Guillen
SP Johan Santana
SP Carlos Zambrano
SP Kelvim Escobar
SP Freddy Garcia
CL Ugueth Urbina
RP Francisco Rodriguez
dancinns
03-29-04, 03:48 PM
Originally posted by Red Dog
I'd much rather see US vs P.R. or D.R. I'd love to see those as well but the Japan one is interesting to me because most Americans are not familar with the Japanese players.
twikoff
03-29-04, 04:03 PM
Originally posted by dancinns
I'd love to see those as well but the Japan one is interesting to me because most Americans are not familar with the Japanese players.
are there enough japanese players currently in the MLB to field a full team?
Aphex Twin
03-29-04, 04:05 PM
Isn't PR technically US?
Red Dog
03-29-04, 04:10 PM
Originally posted by Aphex Twin
Isn't PR technically US?
Sort of. They compete separately in the Olympics too.
DarkElf
03-29-04, 04:13 PM
Originally posted by twikoff
are there enough japanese players currently in the MLB to field a full team?
NO!
Which is why I didn't include them.
Using just MLB players, here's a tentative listing by country of birth:
Originally posted by El Scorcho
How sick is that Dominican Republic team?
depends on if pedro can pitch every game ;)
DarkElf
03-29-04, 04:53 PM
Originally posted by twikoff
:whofart:
:confused:
twikoff
03-29-04, 05:36 PM
Originally posted by DarkElf
:confused:
I wanted to quote you quick, because i figured you were in the process of cleaning that mess up ;)
DarkElf
03-29-04, 05:52 PM
Originally posted by twikoff
I wanted to quote you quick, because i figured you were in the process of cleaning that mess up ;)
Is something not displaying right for you? It looks perfect to me. I'm using the "& n b s p" method you taught me a few years ago.
twikoff
03-29-04, 05:55 PM
Originally posted by DarkElf
Is something not displaying right for you? It looks perfect to me. I'm using the "& n b s p" method you taught me a few years ago.
i didnt teach you the nabisco method
I tought you to drop it into excel, view as web page, copy source, drop into word, replace ^p with null value, copy and paste into thread
cwikoff
03-29-04, 05:56 PM
ah.. here was go
i was in using that stupid firefox browser and it looked like crap
just checked it with IE, and its fine
DarkElf
03-29-04, 06:03 PM
Originally posted by twikoff
i didnt teach you the nabisco method
I tought you to drop it into excel, view as web page, copy source, drop into word, replace ^p with null value, copy and paste into thread
Nabisco :lol: (never heard that before)
Yes, you taught me that TOO (for the MLB free agents thread), and that's what I'm using for the MLB threads this year. But I'm pretty sure it was you who taught me nabisco long before that. No one else here does tables but you.
But anyway, are you saying it doesn't display properly for you either? I've been using that method for almost every table I've done, including all the MLB threads last year. You should have said something sooner.
EDIT: Okay, I'll keep using nabisco for the quick and dirty tables, and the "advanced" method for the larger, fancier tables.
Deftones
03-29-04, 06:17 PM
Originally posted by cwikoff
ah.. here was go
i was in using that stupid firefox browser and it looked like crap
just checked it with IE, and its fine
and now you are posting as your wife. rotfl
twikoff
03-29-04, 07:10 PM
Originally posted by Deftones, Esq
and now you are posting as your wife. rotfl
I was logged into the crappy browser
she was logged into IE
I knew she was still logged in.. just didnt feel like dealing with switching on this browser
Shamu
03-29-04, 07:40 PM
Originally posted by dancinns
This would/will be interesting. I'd love to see a series between Japan and USA.
They have some of the USA All Stars vs. the Japanese All Stars type series already in Japan.
Buy: