World Baseball Classic

So far, I've only watched one game (US v Mexico) of the World Baseball Classic, but now that we're moving on to the 2nd round, I'm starting to find this intriguing. It's now down from 16 to 8 teams: USA, Mexico, Japan and S. Korea in one group. Cuba, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic in another group. They're playing another round robin, and the top two teams form each group move on to a single elimination playoff.

I checked out the rosters of some of the other teams, looking for current and former Oakland A's players. Wow. There are some great players in this tournament. Of course I want the USA to win, but looking at some of these other teams, there's a very good chance we won't. We lost to Canada already!

The Mexican team has some great pitching, including current A's starter Esteban Loiza. They've get Ricardo Rincon in the bullpen and after 5 years of watching him be mediocre for the A's, I wouldn't be surprised if he blew a game for Mexico.

Marco Scutaro and Ramon Hernandez join a very talented Venezuelan team. If it all comes down to one game, their best pitcher is arguably the best pitcher in baseball right now, Johan Santana. Still, it is baseball, and even the best pitcher can have a bad day.

The Dominican team looks like an all-star team. With Miguel Tejada, Vladimir Guerrero, David Ortiz, Albert Pujols and Alfonso Soriano, these guys will socre lots of runs. I think they have some holes in their team, but if I had to bet who would win it all, my money would be on the Dominicans.