Daily Notes: A Not Unhelpful WBC Status Update
Table of Contents
Today’s edition of the Daily Notes has no table of contents, it appears.
A Not Unhelpful WBC Status Update
Pools A and B of this year’s edition of the World Baseball Classic began this past weekend in Japan and Taiwan, respectively. As noted in a semi-adequate preview of the Classic, many of the first games took place at a time when Americans are either (a) asleep or (b) engaged in some manner of illegal activity or, strangely, (c) both.
In any case, what follows is a record of what took place over Classic’s first weekend of play.
Standings
In the first round, each team plays the other three teams in its pool once. The two teams with the highest winning percentages advance to Round Two. A series of tie-breaking rules exist which the author has no interest in reading even at all.
Here are the first-round standings as of this morning — including the Korea-Australia game that started at 5:30 AM (ET) — copy-and-pasted illicitly from ESPN, but then formatted to suggest nothing of the sort.
First, for Pool A:
| Pool A | W | L | PCT | GB | RS | RA | DIFF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Japan | 2 | 0 | 1.000 | – | 10 | 5 | 5 |
| Cuba | 2 | 0 | 1.000 | – | 17 | 2 | 15 |
| China | 0 | 2 | .000 | 2 | 2 | 17 | -15 |
| Brazil | 0 | 2 | .000 | 2 | 5 | 10 | -5 |
And then for Pool B:
| Pool B | W | L | PCT | GB | RS | RA | DIFF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese Taipei | 2 | 0 | 1.000 | – | 12 | 4 | 8 |
| Netherlands | 1 | 1 | .500 | 1 | 8 | 8 | 0 |
| Korea | 1 | 1 | .500 | 1 | 6 | 5 | 1 |
| Australia | 0 | 2 | .000 | 2 | 1 | 10 | -9 |
Stats
Here is a slightly absurd, but not entirely usesless, leaderboard of the top-10 hitting performances of the World Baseball Classic so far (including Monday’s early games). SCOUT+ an offensive measure calculated with regressed home-run, walk, and strikeout rates, where 100 is average and above 100 is above average. (Click here for more on what is SCOUT.)
| Player | Team | Pos | PA | xHR% | xBB% | xK% | SCOUT+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yongkyu Lee | KOR | OF | 9 | 0.9% | 11.9% | 18.0% | 107 |
| Takashi Toritani | JPN | IF | 5 | 0.9% | 11.6% | 18.5% | 105 |
| Cheng-Min Peng | TAI | 1B | 8 | 1.2% | 10.4% | 18.8% | 105 |
| Alexei Bell | CUB | OF | 8 | 1.2% | 10.4% | 18.8% | 105 |
| Stefan Welch | AUS | 3B | 7 | 1.2% | 10.5% | 19.0% | 105 |
| Jose Abreu | CUB | IF | 8 | 1.2% | 9.9% | 18.2% | 105 |
| Andruw Jones | NED | RF | 8 | 0.9% | 11.4% | 18.8% | 104 |
| Guillermo Heredia | CUB | OF | 10 | 0.9% | 10.8% | 17.9% | 104 |
| Dae Ho Lee | KOR | 1B | 9 | 0.9% | 10.9% | 18.0% | 104 |
| Hisayoshi Chono | JPN | LF | 8 | 0.9% | 10.9% | 18.2% | 104 |
And here are the top-10 pitching performances thus far — in this case by SCOUT-, a metric calculated with regressed strikeout and walk rates where 100 is average and below 100 is above average.
| Player | Team | G | GS | IP | TBF | xK% | xBB% | SCOUT- |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Danny Betancourt | CUB | 1 | 1 | 4.2 | 16 | 22.3% | 9.7% | 86 |
| Raciel Iglesias | CUB | 1 | 0 | 3.0 | 10 | 21.1% | 9.6% | 90 |
| Seunghwan Oh | KOR | 2 | 0 | 1.2 | 5 | 21.1% | 9.7% | 91 |
| Ismel Jimenez | CUB | 1 | 1 | 4.2 | 18 | 20.7% | 9.5% | 91 |
| Kenta Maeda | JPN | 1 | 1 | 5.0 | 17 | 20.9% | 9.7% | 92 |
| Hirokazu Sawamura | JPN | 1 | 0 | 1.0 | 3 | 20.6% | 9.7% | 93 |
| Tadashi Settsu | JPN | 1 | 0 | 3.0 | 11 | 20.3% | 9.6% | 94 |
| Tetsuya Yamaguchi | JPN | 1 | 0 | 1.0 | 5 | 20.4% | 9.7% | 94 |
| Seung Song | KOR | 1 | 1 | 4.0 | 16 | 20.3% | 9.9% | 95 |
| Hung-Wen Chen | TAI | 2 | 0 | 2.0 | 7 | 20.1% | 9.8% | 96 |
Action Footage: Danny Betancourt
Cuban right-hander Danny Betancourt struck out eight of the 16 Chinese batters he faced on Monday — including, at one point, six in a row — while walking just one and allowing just a single hit. The 31-year-old appears to have posted a 29:13 strikeout-to-walk ratio in the Cuban domestic league this season, which — given the numbers for the country’s other top pitchers — is probably better relative to league than it would be in the majors.
From what footage was available to the author, Betancourt’s fastball seemed to top out at ca. 87 mph. He did however feature command of multiple offspeed pitches, all of which are on display in this video:
And clearly the most amusing of which is this curve, at 0 mph:
Schedule
The Classic is available on MLB Network — and streaming online for customers of Bright House, DIRECTV, and Time Warner Cable
Here are the games scheduled between now and tomorrow morning (ET):
11:30 PM Australia vs. Netherlands
03:00 AM Brazil vs. China
06:30 AM Taipei vs. Korea
Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
Like that’s impressive? I could throw a pitch that slow.
When I lob, it has an arc like that too.
But when you lob, is the result 0 mph?
I throw a devastating 1 mph changeup to compliment my ~25 mph heater.
Love the WBC and your coverage…hate the WBC website and ticket pricing…dismal attendance should be buttressed by free/reduced tickets…kids and seniors especially…interest in other countries confined to home teams and home boys…joyous fans having the best time in Taiwan despite dismal weather…cruel for the captivatiing Netherlands team to be playing in those conditions…not used to weather below 70 degrees…amazing how Brazil gave Japan and Cuba a scare…Brazilian baseball is quite a story and unknown in the USA…Cuba’s manager is an ass…WBC is just getting better and better, and I have my overpriced tickets for the final game…who knows when they’ll be back!
It was funny seeing that Japan game with a packed house to that other one that had less people than a Marlins game.
My understanding was that the announced velocities and the displayed MPH didn’t sync up. Given MPH is pretty much just tagged on for us USA mathematical neanderthals, wouldn’t the KPH be more likely correct?
I saw better stuff in my kid’s coach-pitch little league game. BABIP was about .975, too. (When a 7 year-old kid gloves a ball cleanly, his first reaction is, still, to look behind him).
Hey I was awake! Didn’t watch however, because I couldn’t possibly care less. MLB just needs to realize it’s never going to happen and take two weeks off once every four years for the Olympics. Of course that will never happen because they’d lose the ability to bombard you with ads to buy WBC hats, jerseys, watches, mouse pads, hood ornaments, or whatever other ridiculous stuff they’re peddling.
WBC is a bigger deal for these other countries than in the US. That fact alone is enough to make WBC a worthwhile venture for MLB since it does grow the game in other countries. Even now, you see how the MLB stars from the Caribbean more willing to take time off and represent their country. Eventually, that will probably carry over to team USA and the WBC could exceed the importance of the FIBA championship just behind the World Cup.