Disclaimer: Yes, I know it's not Soccer, but it's USA vs Mexico. Do I really have to explain it further? https://www.mlb.com/world-baseball-...-united-states-in-2026-world-baseball-classic (8 p.m. ET, FOX March 9th, 2026) At least the USA doesn't have to worry about Concacaf officiating... If the USA loses tonight, does that mean our "best athletes" don't play Baseball?
Well, they really don't. *ducks* The CCC is a lot of fun, but it's a whole different ballgame. Baseball is a game where the best teams win between 60%-70% of the time, so a single elimination tournament is absolutely chaos no matter what. There's also the issue that no one really wants their pitchers there so in most tournaments there's good hitting but no pitching; the US has some of their best pitchers there but they are on pitch counts, it's early season and weirdly they may not pitch in the knockouts. I think Skenes may be going tonight so it should be a win, though. Then there's this: half the Mexican roster is US born, and one of their best players is Cuban. They are extremely loose on nationality, mostly because if they weren't, it'd be hard to have a decent field. Most of the Dutch team is from Curacao and Aruba and the such. Most of the Italian or Israeli team are simply American. The US, Japanese and I think Korean team are all native born this year, I think (Maybe Taiwan?) but even the Dominican Republic, which is a powerhouse, has someone like Manny Machado, who was born in Miami. The US has the best team and the overall best talent base, but the DR and Japan are strong enough to compete on everything but pitching (DR almost certainly has the best lineup), and since pitching is weird here ... it's not really any kind of upset if any of those three teams win.
I don't think the DR baseball team having a couple of American born players is different from the USMNT having a couple of foreign born players. No issue with that. I have an issue with the teams that have almost NO relevance to their nations. How many players on the Italian team were born in Italy? 21 of them were born in the US. They're doing stupid nonsense like sipping espresso in the dugout. No Italian would do that. It's stupid. Only two players on the Great Britain team were born in Britain. Neither of these two teams are going to win, so its not really an issue. When we get down to it, the crunch time knockout phases with the DR, US, Japan, Puerto Rico, Mexico etc. are really fun. A lot of passion in the stands as we see with soccer. I wouldn't be able to say who is the favorite amongst those top teams. Vegas tells me the US is slightly favored. All depends on the pitching of the day, and all of those teams have the potential to roll out strong pitchers. Japan has dominated the WBC, winning it three times. They have an extremely strong TEAM identity, as we also see in soccer.
As with everything in baseball, it all comes down to pitching. Mexico is apparently going to start Manny Barreda against the US. Who? Exactly. A 37 year old not currently on a team. Mexico assured themselves of wins in their first two games (with starters like Tijuan Walker and Javier Assad. Almost threw in the towel on this game before its happened. I'd be stunned if this game is at all close. If Mexico advances from the group in 2nd place, then the strategy will make sense. It might go just as planned for them.
The US has the best overall staff and Japan has some good pitchers. The DR is pretty lacking there. Team identity means much, much less and possibly nothing, in baseball. Japan is very good but prior WBCs largely fielded anything from college teams to minor leaguers in the past; we're still not at soccer-level strength this time but far closer. We got good lineups last time but poor pitching. I don't mind the Italian team being mostly American because there's so many less nations but I can see it getting out of control.
There's some things I love about this tournament. There's some things I do not like. It has evolved and gotten better when compared to 20 years ago (generally) though. So I that is a win.
Javier Assad? Born and raised in Tijuana. Definitely sounds like a name of the Arab World. [The internet tells me Assad means lion in Arabic.] Tijuan Walker's connection to Mexico is more speculative. One grandparent on his mother's side was Mexican. I'm sure we USMNT fans have tried to get a player with as flimsy of a connection. That's Pulisic's connection to Croatia, and they tried to get him. You know? I don't have an issue with some players like that on these squads. It would be truly hypocritical of a USMNT fan to be. But we all know Great Britain's team has virtually no connection to Great Britain. Hell, they're doing this stupid act of dressing up like a soldier from Buckingham Palace when they hit a home run. As if anybody from Great Britain would do actually do that. But maybe I'm a curmudgeon and I should just embrace the cultural appropriation. [This player Harry Ford actually has parents from the UK, although he was born and raised in Georgia. That's more of a connection to the UK than 95% of that team.] Harry Ford’s Changing of the Guard celebration after hitting a home run for Great Britain at the World Baseball Classic 💂🇬🇧Love to see it 🤣👏 pic.twitter.com/lZwaFN4Rp9— TNT Sports (@tntsports) March 7, 2026
The nationalilty rules are extremely loose. A player just has to convince the WBC officials that he would be eligible for a passport if he applied for one. He doesn't have to have a passport or even attempt to get one. Also there is a parental birthplace rule that can be used even if it doesn't make the player eligible for a passport. The Bahamian players for Great Britain are eligible based on their parent(s) being born in the Bahamas when it was still a British territory before 1973.
Mexico has a 3-1 record all-time vs. the US in the WBC, though they have only gone deep into the tournament once (2023 semifinals), while the US has reached the semfinals 4 out of 5 times and won the WBC once.
This US team is extremely good, but one-off games just don't show you who's a good team. I wish they had best-of-3 for the knockouts onwards. One-off games just aren't enough, IMO. The WBC has gotten significantly better once enough top MLB talent got involved. Even still, guys like Tarik Skubal just came for a cup of coffee, and other players couldn't get insurance. Not as fun as if it was taken as seriously as the WC for soccer. I expect the US to win, they're much better. It's still early, Mexico has gotten out of multiple jams already. In one-off games, anything can happen.
It's possible. Mexico is basically going to rely on relievers. They used their best 2 starters prior. Again, this is one game. Just look at the number of Americans playing in the competition, and the guys that didn't make it, and the US is doing perfectly fine in terms of development.
This is arguably the least important group stage game for Mexico, they don't need to beat us as long as they take care of business in the other 3 games...which they should, but Italy could be tricky as it looks like they're going to be starting Aaron Nola in that game. The Mexico-Italy game was always going to likely decide the second team to advance and Nola is probably the best non-US pitcher in the group, Mexico would be dumb to burn out any of their relievers tonight.
But pay for play is ruining baseball!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If only all the great athletes in this country played baseball instead of basketball and football. Imagine what we could do!!! Baseball desperately needs what DR, Mexico, Puerto Rico, etc. bring to the game. If not, we kn0ow what it looks like. It would look like the Texas Rangers. What do these players in my Texas Rangers starting lineup have in common? C Danny Jansen 1B Jake Burger 2B Josh Smith SS Corey Seager 3B Josh Jung LF Wyatt Langford CF Evan Carter RF Brandon Nimmo SP Jacob DeGrom
No.............he's white as hell, which was my point with that starting lineup. Of course, US white boy team last night lost to even more US white boy team. I tried to explain to folks last night that American soccer fans are used to Americans suiting up for other nations. Mexican-American soccer players, for instance. There's a category of outraged baseball fan that I'm amused by right now.
I also remember that in one of the earlier World Baseball Classics, the US team was surprised to see the entire stadium rooting for Mexico when they played Mexico in Arizona. I was like, "Welcome to US Men's Soccer's world, USA Baseball!"
It's worth noting the the entire US Baseball Team was also surprised to know that they weren't already through to the quarterfinals after beating Mexico. Because they are all so dumb and arrogant that no one bothered to understand the group tie break rules. Including the manager. So I expect they might be surprised by just about anything, like the sun coming up in the morning.