Glad I found this place... I've been dying to have someone talk WBC with.

came across this article today don't know how accurate it is though:
- CNA ENGLISH NEWS

If this is to be believed, wouldn't that make the 4 qualifying groups come from different regions instead of all being from the same continent? Certainly making it regional like you have posted above makes more sense for a number of reasons, and I think I would personally prefer it, but if we go by this article the format would look different.

here is the quote:

So if we believe this I could see groups looking like this: (took the teams from the IBAF Rankings for the most part and tried to seed teams a bit, obviously what I have listed probably isn't accurate)

*=host

Taiwan*
Czech Republic
Pakistan
Colombia

Canada*
Germany
South Africa
Brazil

Nicaragua*
Thailand
Spain
Sweden

Panama*
Philippines
Great Britain
France

You came to the right place, we have a guy on here and his name is Nebo86. Guy knows his stuff about baseball around the world.

First of all Thomas, welcome to the Baseball Forum! BTH, thanks for the endorsement. Actually, I prefer your format over my own. Taiwanese fans are much maligned for only supporting their home team, but that is no different from any other international events. The Japanese had much better attendance when their national team played in the previous Classics and NPB champions played in the Asia Series. The Caribbean Series hosts always enjoy noticeably better attendance than the games that don’t involve them. International baseball doesn’t have the traveling support that other sports seem to enjoy; yet. I believe that Taiwan’s government may help pay for the event (not sure if whole or partial); which would be attractive to the WBC Steering Committee. It would make for a more competitively balanced yet overall poorly attended event. On the contrary, my prognostication of regional groups would be competitively unbalanced, but with better overall attendance. Once again, glad to have another WBC fan on this forum.

^ I agree from a competitive balance stance having the 4 teams coming from different regions certainly makes sense.... but having continental qualifiers is more in line with the format of past classics, and would make it easier for slotting the 4th teams in regional groups like we have seen in the past.

2006:
Asia: China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea
North America: USA, Canada, Mexico, RSA
Caribbean: Cuba, Puerto Rico, Panama, Netherlands
Misc: Australia, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Italy

2009:
Asia: China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea
Caribbean: DR, PR, Panama, Netherlands
North America: USA, Canada, Venezuela, Italy
misc: Australia, Mexico, Cuba, RSA

well, looking at it, I guess the groups were more diverse in 2009 vs. 2006...... but still fairly renationalized.


I could see groups looking like this for 2013:

Japan, Australia, Italy, Qualifier

South Korea, China, Netherlands, Qualifier

Dominican Republic, USA, Venezuela, Qualifier

Puerto Rico, Cuba, Mexico, Qualifier

That is more or less what I was thinking for the WBC itself; by breaking up the Japan/South Korea pairing. Here is my guess (post #5) with 2009 WBC placement in parenthesis.

The question is, will the Steering Committee do the same for the Qualifiers?

^ I definitely like the idea of straight seeding for the groups.... but if the qualifiers are coming from 4 separate pools what group do you assign them to? Attempt of make it regional to accommodate travel issues or do you go by rankings? The makeup of WBC squads can be very different from the typical national team squad...and I'd imagine qualifier squads would look different from their proper tournament teams...

also the question of hosting issues potentially comes up if the groups for the proper tournament is straight seeded... (maybe not for this years seeds, but down the line)

either way I'm interested to see who will be hosting the first rounds...... Canada is obviously not much of an option again....

Japan is almost a guarantee, Puerto Rico seems like given..... Mexico again? attendance wasn't all that fantastic last time... DR seems like it would be a front runner with South Korea potentially being an option.... Australia is definitely a stretch, but Venezuela could probably host as well though.....

I didn't adhere too much to seeding, but rather used team's WBC placements as a guideline for grouping and also considered their geographic region and their political situation (Cuba). I imagine the WBC Steering Committee will use as much regional assignments as possible.

Most of the possible WBC Qualifier teams do not have many professional players; with the exception of Canada, Taiwan, Colombia and Nicaragua. Only Canada has a significant portion of their team in MLB and MiLB. The other three nations will likely send their top team minus any Major Leaguers. Panama has a few Major Leaguers, but most of team will be made up of its domestic leaguers.

I believe you're on the money with all of these. At this point it's anyone's guess. Does the Steering Committee want to shake things up by changing up the hosts or do they want to do more of the same? I believe it will be somewhere in between; they will stay in Japan and Mexico (this time in Monterrey), Australia is definitely a long shot and all the other bids have a realistic chance.

Here is some recent news about the 2013 WBC
This is contradicting the initial stories about the WBC Qualifiers using the four winless teams from 2009 WBC.
Source- MLB head of operations Joe Torre settling in as owners meet in New York | MLB.com: News

Hmmm.... so basically in addition to Taiwan, Panama, Canada and South Africa we'd be looking at the DR, Australia, Italy and China in qualifying as well.....

I don't know if I buy that they would risk not having the Dominican Republic in the tournament with all of their star power at the MLB level......

If it is true though this would have 8 teams with automatic berths, and 16 teams in the preliminaries.... would they consider doing a straight 16 team tournament maybe?

Or maybe more likely is 4 groups of 4 with the top 2 in each qualifying....

If this is the case I could see the 8 additional teams being:

Nicaragua
Thailand
Germany
Czech Republic
Britain
Philippines
Colombia
Brazil

This certainly complicates grouping. Here is my list of new teams:

Nicaragua
New Zealand
Germany
Czech Republic
Spain
Philippines
Colombia
Brazil