The problem with the World Baseball Classic is that everybody agrees there’s a seed of a good idea in it, the question is: how can it grow?
I’ve come around a little bit to an idea postulated by Sportsnet’s Buck Martinez, who is covering the WBC for the MLB Network: play the championship round once every four years in mid-season instead of playing an all-star Game. I like that idea, but I’d take it one further: play the WBC during that time without shutting down the Major League regular season.
Hear me out. It’s unlikely that the revenue generated from an in-season one- or two-week event would cover the revenue lost by shuttering Major League parks during that period of time, and reducing the regular season to, say, 154 games seems to be a non-starter with ownership.
So play the game in-season and allow rosters to be expanded to, say, 30 or 35 players during that time so that the regular-season can continue. The concept of a ‘pool’ of available pitchers for the second round of the event is already in place, so why not do the same thing in-season? Since pitchers and players would be in mid-season shape, limitations on pitch counts, etc., would be less of an issue.
If, say, Marcus Stroman were to start for Team USA on his regular turn it would theoretically eliminate the need for a limit, which, in turn, would eliminate the number of pitchers used per game. More to the point, WBC rosters could be manipulated to the point where a pitcher might just make one start for his WBC team then rejoin his regular club.
The event would have to make financial sense, of course, but you can’t tell me that you couldn’t charge premium prices in-season for WBC games at a time when baseball would have no competition for entertainment and TV dollars. Right now is NCAA tournament time in the U.S., and most baseball fans are still in a spring training frame of mind: outdoor ball, beer and sunshine are the selling points as much as home runs and strikeouts.
There will be logistical issues, of course. Would there be qualifying games in the spring? Who plays in them? Would Major League players still be paid according to their regular season pay rate? And fair play to those who wonder whether taking away core players from teams in the middle of the regular season damages the legitimacy of the regular season. It’s true, it’s not fair that a good team loses, say, six players and another team loses just one or two.
But the new collective bargaining agreement has already uncoupled home-field advantage for the post-season from the outcome of the all-star game and ownership has already crossed the rubicon – albeit grudgingly – and accepted the shared risk of players being injured in the WBC. We all shuddered when we saw the splendid Salvador Perez carried off Saturday after a sloppy home-plate collision, but you can’t mitigate against a catastrophic injury at any point in the season.
It’s the strains and ligaments and stuff that make you catch your breath when Jose Bautista throws out a guy in a game for somebody other than the Toronto Blue Jays. Playing the WBC in-season at least increases the physical and instinctive comfort zone for players and pitchers. Nobody’s coming off off-season surgery or fighting for a job on a minor-league contract.
Make the money work out and turn the WBC into a real showcase for the game.
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QUIBBLES AND BITS
• We’ve talked about how not much has really gone on in spring training for the Toronto Blue Jays this season, about how there’s been a whole lot of predictability. But I wonder if Mike Wilner isn’t on to something with his suggestion that Kevin Pillar’s solid and selective spring training might be quietly giving the centre-fielder a leg up as the team’s lead-off hitter in the absence of Devon Travis, who is expected to start the season on the 15-day disabled list.
Pillar is a .198 career hitter out of the lead-off spot with a .521 OPS and 14 strikeouts in just 92 plate appearances – all of them last season – and while that’s just this side of god-awful I’m not sure there’s an alternative.
Melvin Upton, Jr., hasn’t been able to handle the spot even in his most recent good seasons. Ezequiel Carrera? Maybe, but that’s a platoon situation in left field. I know Bautista’s ability to draw a walk excites folks, but with no Edwin Encarnacion, I want Bautista’s bat in the middle of the lineup, don’t you?
• Tough news for the New York Rangers, who are expected to be without goaltender Henrik Lundqvist (hip strain) until March 25, when they start a three-game California road trip. Making matters worse? The five games between now and Lundqvist’s expected return are back-to-back affairs, including Monday night’s in Tampa.
Anti Raanta, whose start in Sunday’s 4-1 win over the Detroit Red Wings was just his fourth in 30 games since Dec. 31, will be backed up by Magnus Hellberg, who has made three relief appearances in two years.
• The good news for Canadian fans of March Madness is that the Oregon Ducks and Toronto’s Dillon Brooks, Pac-12 player of the year, were easy advancers to the NCAA tournament despite an 83-80 loss to the Arizona Wildcats in Saturday’s conference title. They’re the No. 3 seed in the Midwest Region and will play 14-seed Iona on Friday in Sacramento.
The bad news? The Ducks will be without Chris Boucher of Montreal, who tore his ACL on Friday in what is now the final game of his college career. Boucher averaged 11.8 points, 6.1 rebounds and 2.5 blocks per game and was a premier defensive player whose ability to space out the floor was a vital component of one of the best teams in the country.
A LOOK AHEAD
Monday, March 13
NHL: Pittsburgh Penguins at Calgary Flames – The Flames can tie a franchise record with their 10th consecutive win. They’ve had good teams in Calgary but how many people would know the club record was set from Oct. 14-Nov. 3, 1978, when the team was known as the Atlanta Flames?
Tuesday, March 14
NBA: Detroit Pistons at Cleveland Cavaliers – A possible first-round matchup might give Cleveland some food for thought. The Pistons, who went into Sunday leading the NBA in fewest turnovers, beat the Cavs 106-101 on March 9, have won two of the three meetings between the teams and are 4-3 in their last seven games in Cleveland.
NBA: Philadelphia 76ers at Golden State Warriors – Eh? Not much to see hear except for the fact that Warriors head coach Steve Kerr sat out Klay Thompson, Steph Curry, Andre Iguodala and Draymond Green in the Warriors’ last game, a loss on Saturday to San Antonio, their third consecutive defeat. Golden State has seemed to be running on fumes since Kevin Durant’s injury, let’s see how they react.
Thursday, March 16
NCAA: March Madness gets into full swing with first-round games in Buffalo, Milwaukee, Orlando and Salt Lake City.
Saturday, March 18
NHL: Montreal Canadiens at Ottawa Senators – As of Sunday, the Senators, who have won six in a row, are tied with the Canadiens with two games in hand in the race for first place in the Atlantic Division. The Senators have a game in hand after Sunday and have three left against the Canadiens, including a return game on Sunday.
Sunday, March 19
Premier League: Manchester City at Liverpool – Chelsea will win the league title going away, but with Tottenham possibly without leading scorer Harry Kane for the rest of the season these two teams could end up jockeying the rest of the way for second.
Man City and the Spurs are tied for second and third-place Liverpool will be without skipper Jordan Henderson for this match. Could be goals aplenty in this one.
NBA: Indiana Pacers at Toronto Raptors – A repeat of last season’s emotional playoff series, and the first of three games between the two teams. The Pacers can be a handful and Paul George – who seems to always get up for the Raptors – has been on a mission since the trade deadline while his team has become a much better defensive unit.
THE ENDGAME
Is there anything sillier than all the whining that goes on every time an NBA coach decides to rest his regulars the way Warriors coach Kerr did in Saturday’s nationally-televised loss to the Spurs? It’s not Kerr’s fault that the Spurs were also without Tony Parker (back), Kawhi Leonard (concussion protocol) and LeMarcus Aldridge (who was being examined for heart arrhythmia, for heaven’s sake.)
And as long as teams are forced to play schedules that see them criss-cross the country for one game and get hit with back-to-backs, the NBA – indeed, every other league – needs to realize there’s a price to pay for overloading marquee teams with primetime positions.
Given the distance these teams usually go in the playoffs, their coaches have every right to rest regulars as much as they want. Not doing so amounts to malpractice, or at least the mishandling of assets.
Jeff Blair is host of The Jeff Blair Show from 9 a.m.-Noon ET on Sportsnet 590 The FAN.
