myworldofbaseball

The under 18 World Cup will be played in Gijang, Korea on August 30 to September 8 at the Gijang-Hyundai Dream Ballpark. The United States has won the last four under 18 championships.

Group A

Korea, Australia, Netherlands, Canada, Nicaragua and China

Group B

Japan, United States, Taiwan, Panama, South Africa and Spain

The top three teams from each group advance to the super round. The top two teams from the super round play for the championship. The absence of Cuba could be financial. They have also lost a number of their younger players to the major leagues.

The World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) 12 and under World Cup will be played in Tainan City from July 26 to August 4. Tainan City will be hosting the 12 and under until 2027, holding the next five events. They will be the Williamsburg of the WBSC. Fiji is the one interesting new player in this tournament. Taiwan won this event in 2011, the first year it was played, but the United States did not participate in that tournament. The last three events the United States has won the championship. Below are the groupings for the tournament.

Group A

Taiwan, Japan, Czech Republic, South Africa, Cuba and Fiji

Group B

United States, Mexico, Korea, Australia, Venezuela and Italy

The United States will host the Under 18 Baseball World Cup in September 2021. It will be the first time the United States has hosted a Junior championship since 1995 when they were held at Fenway Park and Cape Cod. The United States under 18 has won the last four championships. The games will be played in the exhibition parks of the Baltimore Orioles in Sarasota and the Pittsburgh Pirates in Bradenton Florida.

The United States will try to defend their four time championship August of this year in Gijang City, Korea.

The Honkball and World Port tournament play every other year. The Honkball is in Haarlem while the World Port tournament is played in Rotterdam. Taiwan will be returning to defend their championship against the local team Netherlands and Curacao. Japan will also be participating as well as a United States group.

Cuba is not playing for the first time since 1993. Their absence is because they are unable to send a strong team to compete in the tournament. That is a sad sign of the decline of Cuban baseball.

The dates for the tournament are July 12 to 21.

Major League baseball and the Cuban Baseball Federation (FCB) have come to an agreement to allow Cuban players to play in the major leagues. Under this agreement the FCB will “release” all players under contract who are 25 years of age or older and have six or more years in the FCB to give them an opportunity to negotiate with a major league club. While not required to do so the FCB can also release players less than 25 years of age.

Once a player is released they are allowed to negotiate a contract with a major league club. If a major league team signs a Cuban player a release fee (15 to 20 percent of the negotiated contract), a formulae negotiated with the NPB, KBO and CPBL (though I don’t think the CPBL agreement has been formally agreed upon). The player will be allowed to play baseball in the United States under the standard work visa.

A player who is not part of the FCB will be allowed to sign with a major league club under the same rules that apply to all international free agents. FCB amateurs not playing in the Nacional Series are part of this agreement and must be released by the FCB to be eligible to negotiate with a major league club.

What is significant about this agreement is a player who is released by the FCB and is signed by a major league team can play in the Nacional Series or in an offseason tournament (such as the Olympics or World Cups) if they get approval from their major league club. Myworld would assume that any currently signed players would fall under this agreement, but that is unclear. This would certainly return Cuba to the ranks of the elite in baseball.

The contract with the FCB will expire on October 31, 2021. Any disputes between the FCB and major league baseball will be resolved in arbitration before the International Chamber of Commerce.

The top 12 teams from the Premier 12 will compete in November 2019 for two spots in the 2020 Olympics. The 12 teams will be broken out into groups of four similar to the World Baseball Classic. These games will be held November 2-8 in Mexico, Taiwan and Korea. Two teams from each of these these groups of four will advance to the finals in Tokyo. They will play the games November 11-16 in the Tokyo Dome and Chiba Marine Stadium in pool play. On November 17 the finals will be held with the top two teams playing against each other and the third and fourth place teams competing for the bronze. This could be rather anticlimactic since the top two teams have already qualified for the Olympics and third place only gets you a bronze medal. But athletes play for pride.

The 12 teams that are eligible to compete are (in order of ranking):

1) Japan, 2) United States, 3) Korea, 4) Taiwan, 5) Cuba, 6) Mexico, 7) Australia, Netherlands, 9) Venezuela, 10) Canada, 11) Puerto Rico, 12) Dominican Republic

Just missing from qualifying for the event are Panama, Colombia and Nicaragua, which finished 13-15 in the rankings.

Korea is the defending champions of the only Premier 12 to be played to date. The United States finished second and Japan third. The November time frame has been established to allow the countries to bring their top players to compete in this event. The professional leagues from Japan, United States, Taiwan and Korea will be over. Cuba will postpone their Nacional Series schedule as they do for the World Baseball Classic. It will be the best baseball has to offer outside of the World Baseball Classic.

There are not as many countries that participant in woman’s baseball. Japan is the most dominant, currently carrying a 30 game world cup winning streak. Canada, the number two rated team came the closest to beating Japan in the World Cup, losing 2-1 in a Super Round game. Taiwan jumped three spots after finishing second in last year’s World Cup. Most of the top United States players are encouraged to play softball because of a lack of baseball programs for women. They dropped a notch after failing to medal the last two years. Below are the top 14 countries for woman’s baseball:

1. Japan - 2000 points
2. Canada - 1300
3. Taiwan - 1297
4. United States - 1094
5. Venezuela - 989
6. Australia - 904
7. Cuba - 537
8. Korea - 500
9. Dominican Republic - 433
10. Hong Kong - 363
11. Netherlands - 311
12. Puerto Rico - 267
13. India - 104
14. Pakistan - 67

There will be a number of first round picks on this United States Pan Am roster that recently won the gold. A couple sons of major leaguers that many may be familiar with their names. Posted for reference sake.

Pitchers

Riley Cornelio, Sammy Faltine, Ryan Hawks, Jared Kelley, Jack Leiter, Brennan Malone, Timmy Manning (LHP), Jacob Meador, Max Rajcic, Avery Short (LHP)

Catchers

Drew Romo,

Infielders

C.J. Abrams, Tyler Calihan, Yohandy Morales, Anthony Volpe, Bobby Witt Jr.

Outfielders

Dylan Crews, Pete Crow-Armstrong, Riley Greene

Myworld cannot recall such a dominant performance in a international tournament. The United States were in another league. After beating Panama in the Super Round 9-8 they got their chance to play them again in the gold medal round and won 17-2. Other than the 9-8 game no team got within seven runs. They outscored their opponents in the nine games 131-27, an average of about 12 runs more per game. It is the fifth straight Pan Am championship for the United States 18 and under team.

Bobby Witt Jr. was the big bat hitting for the cycle in a 4 for 5 day, driving in three runs. Corbin Carroll only collected one hit, but it was a homerun. He also drove in a team leading four runs. Tyler Callihan continued to be a hitting maching, going 2 for 4 with three RBIs.

With all the good hitting it is easy to ignore the pitching efforts. Jack Leiter pitched four innings of no hit ball, striking out nine.

In the bronze medal game Canada downed Nicaragua 5-3. LaRon Smith slugged a clutch two out two run homer in the eighth inning to break a 3-3 tie.

The United States, Panama, Canada and Nicaragua all qualify for the 18 and under World Cup that will be held in Korea in 2019. It will be interesting to see if the United States keep the same roster. Many of these players will be drafted in the first round of the major league draft. The United States won the last four 18 and under World Cup in 2017, 2015, 2013 and 2012.

Cuba did not get into the Super Round and failed to qualify for the 18 and under World Cup. The last time they won the event was in 2004.

To be fair it was not really a major league All Star team. But Japan still showed that they can play baseball with some of the best beating a group of major leaguers five games to one. Yesterday they scored all their runs in the second inning to carry them on to a 4-1 win.

Sosuke Genda got the bit hit with a bases clearing three run triple. That was about all she wrote for the major league team, who found leads very fleeting in this series. They scored their lone run in the eighth inning on a solo blast from Ronald Acuna Jr. They did outhit Japan 10 to 8 but stranded 11 runners. The major leaguers were 1 for 14 with runners in scoring position.

Erasmo Ramirez had a dominating outing for the major leaguers after Brian Johnson could not retire a batter in the second inning. Ramirez went five innings, striking out seven and allowing just two hits. That was his best outing of a ugly series.

Shotaro Kasahara got the win working 4.2 scoreless innings. Yasuaki Yamasaki picked up his second save of the series.