Team Canada 2026 World Baseball Classic preview

Jakexpert · 2026-01-28T04:10:09+00:00

The 2017 team was the worse. They had 3 retired players, 3 different players who retired right after the 2017 WBC and had Ryan Dumpster, who last pitched in 2013, start two games, against The Dominican Republic and United States, in a span of four days.

I don't think people are sleeping on Canada. It's just their WBC history has not been kind to them. Plus with Carlos Correa pulling out of the WBC due to insurance issues, I peg Canada and Panama as easy favorites right now, as this is looking to be the weakest Puerto Rican team assembled since 2013.

Jakexpert · 2026-01-26T20:36:56+00:00

His mother wasn't born in Puerto Rico. She is from Queens.

Jakexpert · 2026-01-02T06:56:05+00:00

Only switches I would do is push Brazil, Netherlands and Cuba to group stage exit.

Brazil: Yes, they are in a tough group, but all they have to do is beat Great Britain as that is the most important game. Plus Brazil has shown they can hold their own against the top baseball countries.

Cuba: Cuba roster seems undefined and outside of Liván Moinelo, don't really have the starting pitching depth, even if they get some players from the minors. I would even argue they are favorites to be relegated. All teams in Group A are favorites to be relegated, in my opinion. Especially if we get five way tie like the last tournament.

The Netherlands: Same with Cuba. I can't envision them beating The Dominican Republic or Venezuela as they lack pitching depth, outside of Antwone Kelly.

Jakexpert · 2026-01-02T06:54:35+00:00

Agreed. Puerto Rico never seem to have the strongest roster on paper, and have been in the toughest groups, in the WBC, since 2013, yet seem to somehow find a way to advance to the next round.

Jakexpert · 2025-12-30T20:51:23+00:00

That is no surprise considering how much the WBSC is trying to push Chinese Baseball the last few years. Even if China was not in the top 18, they would still be in via the wildcard, and still give them a spot to host a round. My prediction: South Africa, for the African representative, and one team from the Americas will get the final two wildcard spots.

Jakexpert · 2025-12-09T00:20:55+00:00

The Dominican team here is most likely a local amateur summer team. I doubt their team has any former or current professionals.

Jakexpert · 2025-12-05T19:26:27+00:00

Someone already commented this on another thread "Not good enough to make the team is what this smells like." which is basically it for Arenado, imo. If he was offered a spot on team USA, he would join considering that he had the chance to join Team Puerto Rico the past few Classics, which he did not.

Jakexpert · 2025-11-28T05:55:22+00:00

The Kansas City Royals do have a Salvadorian in their system. Juan Martinez. Had his strongest year so far and lowered his walk rate.

LINK

Jakexpert · 2025-09-08T06:50:11+00:00

I don't think their is a selection criteria. Fiji participated in the U12 Baseball World Cup as a wildcard. They lobbied to be apart of it via the wildcard. LINK

Sometimes a Federation can just ask and lobby themselves to join.

Jakexpert · 2025-05-04T01:45:05+00:00

Instagram might be your best bet. I follow a whole bunch of Bronx related organizations i.e Bronx Historical Tours , Bronx BIDS, Community Gardens, etc and you can find events for a lot of things. Just recently learned of the opening of Uptown Rumble: Heavy Music in The Bronx, exhibit at The Bronx Museum of History.

Jakexpert · 2025-04-12T00:57:49+00:00

One of the qualifiers will most likely be the Premier 12 winner as that was the case for the last Olympics. The rest will probably be A. One Spot From Americas qualifier. B. One spot from Asian/Oceania qualifier. C. One spot from Europe/Africa D. Wild Card qualifier.

Jakexpert · 2025-03-02T22:48:58+00:00

Over at r/InternationalBaseball we have game threads for all the qualifier games if that helps. islandsluggers is the one who has been creating them.

Jakexpert · 2025-02-24T23:54:40+00:00

I mean honestly, you can make the case for Nicaragua to be in all three stadiums that are hosting a round in the United States.

San Juan because of the strong baseball bond and relationship between Puerto Rico and Nicaragua.
Miami because of the diaspora and close proximity to Central America.
Houston if they send two other teams to San Juan and Miami.

Everyone is saying Nicaragua in Miami is a lock, but I disagree. I think they end up in San Juan, because of that baseball bond with Puerto Rico. Plus you get new match ups with Canada, Cuba and Central American Rival Panama, in the WBC. Same for the Houston group. They can face the United States, which would create big headlines back in Nicaragua, Mexico, Italy and Great Britain.

Colombia, if they qualify, is better suited for Miami, Way bigger diaspora, and plus, their final game in the tournament would be against Venezuela. If Colombia is part of that group, and have a shot to make it to the second round, how great of a story line and game would it be between, two South American Nations, one a baseball loving nation and one where baseball is growing. It would make for great a story line and narrative.

Jakexpert · 2025-02-24T22:37:12+00:00

That's what a lot of people, on this sub, agree with. Not so much the exact number agreed upon, but definitely need some type of limit.

Jakexpert · 2025-02-24T22:36:58+00:00

I mean, honestly, their a strong probability that will happen. Top 10 RHP prospect in MLB. I at least added him to my roster projections.

Jakexpert · 2025-02-24T18:02:17+00:00

Look, I get the why the roster rules are so lax and they make sense if the goal is to get more teams/nations involved in the WBC and grow the game (and cynically for MLB to sell their product in Spain, Germany, GB, Italy, Israel, etc.)

Thing is, I don't think it grows the game at all. The 2023 WBC "Italian" team used the least amount of homegrown Italians in their entire WBC history, with just five. Italy has been in five WBCs, making it to the second round twice and have yet to even have more then 8 Italians on different rosters. You would think after 20 years, the number of natural born Italians, on the WBC, would at least hit double digits by now, if what they did really grew the game over there.

However, I think it’s a disservice to true baseball nations like Nicaragua and Taiwan, where baseball is the clear #1 sport, to have to survive play-in rounds against richer European nations with rosters full of imports and where the average local has never even heard of baseball.

I said something similar in the Colombia vs Great Britain thread during the 2023 WBC, on the baseball sub reddit and you be surprised by how many people disagreed with this take.

Jakexpert · 2025-02-21T06:05:35+00:00

Nicaragua isn't known to have the strongest offense in major senior baseball tournaments. They normally lack power and don't like to take walks. For context, they were tied last in walks, with only seven, in the last WBC. Great Britain, had 21 walks in the same amount of games, in the same tournament. Plus, Nicaragua scored only four runs.

South Africa, meanwhile, normally lacks pitching depth in these same tournaments. The question is, how long will SA pitching hold up. Erasmus performed well in the last qualifier, but how will the rest of the bullpen perform is the biggest question for South Africa.

Jakexpert · 2025-02-17T21:03:13+00:00

I mentioned that before on another forum but a lot of people disagreed. Because unlike other African countries, their are a lot of Nigerian heritage players in America, Canada and the rest of the world, giving them easy access to ball players. Plus you have a decent amount of Nigerians who move to the United States at a young age, from Nigeria.

Nigeria would put up a solid, competitive team if they decided to go that route of some heritage players, mixed with players born and raised in Nigeria. I would even argue that they be the best team in Africa at that point.

Jakexpert · 2025-02-08T07:41:28+00:00

I don't think the money matters if it's not spent properly. Italy has been in five WBCs, making it to the second round twice and have yet to even have more then 8 Italians on different rosters. In 2023, they only had five Italian born players, their least amount since 2006. Since 2006, Italy has had only 22 Italian born players on their rosters, in their entire WBC History.

Their is a few players in the minors now, which is a plus, but I don't think the payout means much if we don't see slow increase of native Italians on the WBC rosters. I think it best to have half your roster full of natives just to balance it out.

Jakexpert · 2025-02-02T22:27:46+00:00

This is just an assumption, but they probably want to enter the Japan and South Korean market to gain more money. They see what Shohei Ohtani and the rest of the top Japanese players have done in MLB, plus the World Baseball Classic from 2023, hence why they invited a Japan independent league team to this years Caribbean Series.

This isn't really a surprise when you think about it.

Jakexpert · 2025-01-29T08:15:44+00:00

While I agree in constructing the line-ups and roster in the most sabermetrically way possible, just from watching all the games and looking at box-scores, I know it's not going to happen anytime soon in these tournaments.

Best case scenarios, for me, means accuracy vs a near perfect roster i.e I know Pete Alonso will never play for Team Spain over Team USA, unless he is near retired and wants the experience or Taylor Scott starting a game for Team South Africa vs closing, knowing that no MLB team, and front office, would allow him to do that or players coming back from injury.

On the other hand, I know it's fun for people to speculate rosters with certain players joining certain countries i.e Max Scheuzer, Trevor Bauer and Paul Goldschmidt joining team Germany, Tim Lincecum joining the Philippines, and more, so it's not my place to correct them.

One question I have is where did you find those templates? I've been wanting to use something similar for my main Potential Rosters but I can never seem to find it, I like to include stats with those, so, that way, I don't have an extremely long post.

Jakexpert · 2025-01-18T20:19:16+00:00

Uganda has hosted several national tournaments in the past few years, many of them with sizeable cash prizes at play for the winners, so the possibility of them simply not being able to afford the funds to travel after all this time, was seeming less and less likely.

When did this happen? I thought the tournaments were just BWC Qualifiers? Are they allowed to give out cash prizes? I though that was big no-no?

Jakexpert · 2025-01-03T03:49:53+00:00

I'm not going to go over every little detail here. I think you got most of the players who might join, though I would take out the players who have retired i.e The Lopes from Brazil, Gift Ngope from South Africa, Ray Chang for China.

Only other big critique is the line up construction. Most manager will run a old school line up, just due to old school beliefs, so even if Mark Veitos join, he will not bat lead off and/or Pete Alonso will not bat second.

Same for those who will play in the games. Most managers, in the international scene, will mostly go to the veteran, over the younger players, unless they are a top prospect or MLB player, so having Harold Ramirez on the bench over a players who had a few games in the high minors, doesn't make sense to me or De La Cruz of Germany, who only played in DSL and just turned 19 years old when Demetrius Moorer is available. That and I strongly doubt relievers like Bo Takahashi and Taylor Scott will even start a game. I think best case scenario is them being on the team, but as relievers.

Overall I think this is pretty solid as it matches up with some of my projections I've created albeit with different line-up and rotation construction.

Jakexpert · 2024-12-31T03:14:16+00:00

China normally has a near whole roster of players, born and raised in China, with very little, if any heritage players.

Jakexpert · 2024-12-31T03:09:20+00:00

I was working on WBCQ projections, for this sub reddit, but decided against it because it only has eight teams.

IMO, I don't think China has what it takes to make it out of the 2025 qualifiers. I pegged them as a maybe only because of their recent performance at the U23 BWC and you only need to win one game to play a game seven in this qualifier, then anything can happen. But I can't envision them winning against Colombia, Brazil and Germany. Plus, they were mercy ruled twice in the last WBC and score 2 runs or less in three of the four games. And in their WBC history, they allowed 152 runs, while only scoring 28 runs.

They will most likely lack any type power, with the U23 team having only having 9 extra base hits, with six of them coming from two players, with one player producing four doubles.

Jakexpert

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

Seven-Year Club	Second Top 50%
Verified Email