Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
The World Baseball Classic is going on all March long. The United States doesn’t have many of the superstars on the roster, and that’s a major problem. I want the best of the best out on the field to represent their country, and the way this is set up right now just isn’t working out. If this event is going to continue on in 2017, there is one major thing I want to see changed.
The first thing obviously would be getting all the superstars involved in the tournament. It is not right not seeing players like Justin Verlander, Felix Hernandez and Clayton Kershaw out there for their countries.
The only way this works is having one week set aside to play the tournament. You get eight countries together and play each team one time for seven games. The team with the best record gets the championship. That seems fairly easy to do.
It would be a much cleaner way to setting up the tournament anyway, and the site of it can be rotated between Tokyo, San Juan and somewhere in the United States. You get all the stars of the game all around the world together for a one-week battle for world domination in baseball.
I’m sure there are going to be other countries who aren’t in the eight who will be upset about this idea, and I’m sure teams like Brazil wouldn’t make it, but you need to get the eight best countries together. I really hope that something changes for next time around.
Andy Schmidt is a columnist/writer for RantSports. Follow him on Twitter @ASchmidtSports, like his Facebook page or add him to your network on Google.
