Comments on: Surprised Team Korea is this good? You shouldn’t be.

By: kensai

kensai — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 02:11:18 +0000

Or Korea getting shutdown by Hall Of Famer Kevin Correia.

By: kensai

kensai — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 02:05:46 +0000

To the point, Japan getting humiliated by Lincecum in Spring Training was what I would expect on a regular basis if they put together a real team.

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By: kensai

kensai — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 02:04:05 +0000

melissa-Yes, very much so.

Put all these teams in a 150 game schedule and I guarantee USA/Dominican Republic comes out on top.

Asian baseball is great and all, but all these American sportswriters going batshit insane about anybody beating us are ridiculous. It’s very much Spring Training for them. None of the pitchers in the rotation would make a real team if it was a full season either.

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By: melissa

melissa — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 00:00:25 +0000

Aren’t these tournaments such a small sample size that the results aren’t comparable to 162 game season? The Netherlands beat the Dominican team, which is loaded with MLB all-stars, twice? Does that mean the Netherlands could compete in MLB? Of course not. I still don’t believe this tournament proves that the Koreans could win a single division in baseball. They may be able to compete in a weak division but it’s far fetched to believe they could win the AL East. The fact that these Koreans can’t play in MLB may be a reason why they are more competitive in these games. Since it’s their only chance to get exposure these games are going to mean more to them than the average players on team U.S.A.

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By: Coley Ward

Coley Ward — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 23:14:23 +0000

FWIW, I just watched the Korean WBC team play an exhibition against the Dodgers (sans Manny) and it was a pretty evenly matched game. Randy Wolf started for the Dodgers and got knocked around, but didn’t end up allowing many runs.

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By: Nick Kapur

Nick Kapur — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 01:16:46 +0000

Korea has all kinds of rules and obstacles in place to prevent its players from leaving the country. All the Korean players in the Majors got out of the country through some sort of special case, and are not actually the best players from Korea. So it doesn’t follow that if Korean players aren’t in the Majors they aren’t good. Doesn’t follow at all, because it’s not a free market.

I honestly believe it’s possible that a team of the 25 best Korean players is better than any given single major league team.

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By: Ben

Ben — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 17:54:47 +0000

Yes but remember, the guy they knocked around was Carlos Silva. So the real question is who had the idiotic idea of giving Silva the ball in an elimination game?

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By: melissa

melissa — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 17:40:24 +0000

I’m not familiar enough with the Korean team to know but how many of their players are in MLB? I find it hard to believe they are the best team on the planet if all of these players are not MLB caliber. Do you really think they would win any division in baseball? I find that highly implausible if their individual players aren’t competing in MLB. They may be very fundamentally sound and a decent baseball team but this tournament is not the collection of the best teams in baseball. The 162 game MLB season determines the best teams in the game not a 2 week exhibition tournament.

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