While this is an upset, the Dominican Republic clearly sent there B team to the WBC. Nowhere on that roster will you find Manny Ramriez, Johan Santana, Albert Pujols, Aramis Ramirez, Placido Polanco, Ervin Santana, or even Jose Valverde who's argubly the best relief pitcher from the DR.
Still the DR had 21 of their players on active 40 man rosters, while the Netherlands only 2. So there is no excuse for the DR as to why they are now sitting at home, and this is an upset. I just don't think it's as big of an upset as it appears initally.
So who's to blame for why the Dominican Republic lost. The answer to me, it's Alex Rodriguez.
Had A-Rod been on the Dominican team, he would have filled in the gaps for all of all-star caliber players that I mentioned before, and the Dominican Republic would have won the WBC hands down.
Just to kind of touch up on this story, Johan Santana is not from the Dominican Republic as I had stated before, he is from Venezuela, not that it would have made a difference as he was injured.
We'll see if the Netherlands run can continue, as they face a very deep Venezuelean team lead by Felix Hernandez, Magglio Ordonez, and Francisco Rodriguez.
Right now I like the U.S. to win the whole thing. Their pithcing is a little thin, but that offense I think is just too stacked for any staff to handle. If they don't win it, I like Japan to repeat.
I love the idea of the WBC, but there are still some issues that need to be ironed out.
Mainly MLB teams have to be willing to let their top players go play in this thing, and the top players have to be willing to play.
The only country I know of that really makes this event a top priority is Japan. Cuba might as well, but I am not as familer with their roster as I am with the Japanese.
I know MLB teams are hesistant to let their top stars go for fear of injury, which is a legitamate concern. But if Bud Selig and the rest of Major League Baseball want to take this thing seriously, this event needs the top stars to play in order to succeed.
Baseball is heading more and more towards globalization. The MLB is followed just as closely in Japan, as their own professional league is right now. Kids in latin america dream of playing in the Majors.
Now whether or not MLB should actually try to put teams in these areas is another debate all together which I don't want to get into, but it is clear that promoting the game outside of North American borders can only help the MLB and the game as a whole.
Overall I think this year's WBC is operating much better then the one is 2006 did. Attendance, and coverage of the event is on the up. For instance a game between South Korea and China drew about 4,000 fans in 2006. The same matchup in 2009 drew about 12,500. Three games in Puerto Rico drew under 9,000 fans in 2006, as compared to none this year. And from what I've heard and seen ticket prices remained roughly the same from 2006.
These figures mean that the WBC is being noticed more because of the event itself, rather than just an upset by the Netherlands, which is great.
Granted the Netherlands upset of the Dominican Republic is awesome publicity for the WBC, but when the attendance and press coverage of the event improves as a whole it means it's heading it the right direction.
Bottomline this is a good event but this will never be like the World Cup, there trying to outreach baseball to all the world. Here's the thing thats nice that Italy and the Netherlands are trying to play in this thing but lets be honest these country's are a lot better at soccer than at baseball. Canada same for them, now to Latin America most of these country's baseball is either there main sports or really close to being it. It's not the main sport for a lot of country's thats why the European teams get eliminated early excluding the Dutch.
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