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Ask the Reports: ATR Answers Your Baseball Questions – April 23rd, 2012

Monday April 23rd, 2012



Jonathan Hacohen:  Posted every Weekend: Your top baseball questions from the past week are answered. E-mail all questions to mlbreports@me.com, message us on Twitter and post on our Facebook Wall!

Let’s get to your top questions of the week:

 

Q:  When do the WBC Qualifiers begin? When does the WBC itself begin?  William

JH:  Starting off with one of our most loyal Twitter followers. A great question Williams, you know we love talking WBC! In fact, we love the World Baseball Classic so much, that we have a dedicated site for it: wbcreports.com. Keep the page bookmarked for all the latest WBC info! To answer your question, the WBC Qualifiers begin September of this year. With the MLB playoffs just about to begin, tensions and debates will begin as playoff-bound teams are unlikely (will not) send their players to the qualifiers. One or two missing players could mean the difference between a WBC berth…or elimination. The tournament itself begins in March 2013. Debates have also raged as to when the World Baseball Classic should be held. Some feel mid-season to replace the All-Star Game. This will NEVER happen, as Major League Baseball depends on the All-Star Game to appease sponsors and is one of the biggest events on the MLB calendar. Some others feel that the WBC should be held after the World Series. This creates issues with players that are tired and worn out from a gruelling MLB schedule…which would likely result in low participation rates. Thus during Spring Training was deemed as the lesser of all the evils as to when to hold the tournament. The start of the tournament has led many to believe that pitchers participating in the tournament run the risk of arm injuries- as they are not prepared and warmed up sufficiently to go all out in March. I wouldn’t necessarily disagree. But it is what it is. Fortunately though we are only several months away from the qualifiers. I for one can’t wait! Read the rest of this entry