Jung Hoo Lee heads off to Tokyo to participate in Pool C, after going 5-12 in the first five games of camp, and making some nice defensive plays in right. So, it is time to look at the World Baseball Congress!
As was the case 3 years ago, there are 20 teams competing in 4 pools, March 6-11 (the one in Asia is a day earlier):
Pool A (San Juan PR): Puerto Rico (Heliot Ramos), Cuba, Canada, Panama, Columbia (Reiver Sanmartin)
Pool B (Houston): USA (Logan Webb), Mexico, Italy, Great Britain (Tristan Beck), Brazil
Pool C (Tokyo): Japan, Australia, Korea (Jung Hoo Lee), Czechia, Taiwan
Pool D (Miami): Venezuela (Jose Butto), Dominican, Netherlands, Israel (Harrison Bader), Nicaragua
You see where our 7 Giants will play. Note that JHL is actually the team captain for Korea. The Giants play a “friendly” against Team USA on March 3rd in Scottsdale Stadium.
The 16 teams that finished in the top 4 of their pool back in 2023 automatically qualified, with the final 4 spots filled from an 8 team qualifier round. That’s how Columbia, Nicaragua, Brazil, and Taiwan got in this time. Pool C is estimated as the deepest, by smart people, although I think I’d have picked Pool A for that..
After round-robin pool play, the top two teams in each pool advance, into a 8-team win-or-go-home format, whose schedule is shown in the Picture of the Post.
Television coverage in the USA for the entire tournament will be on FOX, and FOX Deportes.
