A report conveying hope to Korean baseball, which is in shock after being eliminated in the first round three times in a row in the World Baseball Classic (WBC), draws attention.
The Athletic, an online media specializing in American sports, published an analysis article on its website on the 25th (Korean time) that classified 16 countries that will automatically participate in the 2026 WBC finals into 7 grades.
The 16 countries ranked in the top 4 of the 4 groups at this year’s WBC, including Japan and Korea, who won their third championship, will automatically compete in the 6th WBC, which will be held three years later.
The Athletic has assigned 카지노South Korea and Canada to Tier 3 countries, which are “solid, but have not reached their potential.”
The media first pointed out that, compared to Japan, a rival and neighboring country, Korea has fewer cases of transfers from the KBO League to the American Professional Baseball Major League (MLB), or cases in which a transferred player became an MLB star than Japan.
He added that there were only two MLB players participating in this tournament, Tommy Hyeon-su Edman (St. Louis Cardinals) and Kim Ha-seong (San Diego Padres), both of Korean descent.
The Athletic also mentioned that Korea lost to Australia and was eliminated in the first round for the third time in a row in the WBC, adding a painful passage from the perspective of Korean baseball observers.
The Athletic points out that those who are interested in Korean baseball believe that the method of nurturing players is far behind that of MLB and Japanese professional baseball.
At the same time, the media added encouragement, saying, “Korea is crazy about baseball, and the Korean national team can do much better.”
The countries that The Athletic has selected as the first grade are Japan, the country with the most WBC championships, and the United States, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela, which are full of MLB stars.
Puerto Rico and Mexico were evaluated as countries worthy of aiming for a second-rate championship.
In other words, eight countries in the first to third grades, including Korea and Canada in the third grade, became candidates for the quarterfinals of the next tournament.
The Athletic also evaluated the Netherlands and Australia as ‘successful but in decline’.
The Netherlands, who reached the semifinals in a row in the 2013 and 2017 WBC, lost in the first round this year. After defeating Korea, Australia lost to Cuba in the quarterfinals.
The Athletic heard that the big leaguers from Curacao and Aruba, who were called the golden generation of Dutch baseball, are already in their mid-to-late 30s.
In addition, the number of talented players in Australia signing with MLB clubs is only 1/10 of that of Panama on an annual basis, and the Australian professional league is so popular and scale that it is difficult to give a business card to the KBO league or Japanese professional baseball. predicted that it would decline unless it was nurtured.