And finally we come to Pool D. The Pool with the United States and Mexico and Canada and … Italy? Yes, and European baseball powerhouse Italy (seriously). It would appear at face value that there's a pretty big gap between Team USA and everyone else in this Pool, but this being the World Baseball Classic, it's pretty difficult to gauge just how much MLB players are going to care and since that's all that Team USA has, well, we'll see.
After the jump let's break down the rosters and make some predictions.
Everyone's had a good laugh over the Willie Bloomquists and Heath Bells on Team USA's roster, but I honestly think that they stack up pretty well against the other MLB countries in terms of talent. There's Ryan Braun and Adam Jones and Giancarlo Stanton in the outfield and it's pretty legitimately exciting to think of the three of them in the same lineup. David Wright and Ben Zobrist and Mark Teixeira and Joe Mauer aren't slouches, either. They also have something that Venezuela and the Dominican Republic don't really have: starting pitching. RA Dickey, Gio Gonzalez, and Ryan Vogelsong makes a pretty nice trio. Craig Kimbrel and Jeremy Affedlt and Mitchell Boggs and Chris Perez and Luke Gregerson and Vinnie Pestano make up a solid bullpen, too. It's easy to make jokes about the fringes of the roster and the guys that decided not to compete, but really, this is a USA team that could probably give Japan and Cuba a run for their money.
MexicoMexico advanced out of the first round in the first two WBCs, but it's kind of hard to look at their roster and think that they're going to do it again in 2013. Besides Adrian Gonzalez there's very little big league hitting talent on this roster, and while Yovani Gallardo is maybe one of the more talented pitchers on any team in the tournament, but there's just not much else here. Karim Garcia will probably be one of their starting outfielders! There might be enough odds and ends in the pitching staff (Alfredo Aceves, Oliver Perez, Marco Estrada, Sergio Romo, and Fernando Salas are all decent enough) to help them past a similarly weak Canada team, but I don't think they have much more in them than that.
ItalyThe little blurb on their WBC page tells me that Italy has traditionally been a baseball powerhouse in Europe, which I suppose I have an easy enough time believing. There are a few familiar faces here: Jason Grilli is in the bullpen along with Yankee minor leaguer and switch-thrower Pat Venditte. Dan Serafini's there, too, and I don't think I've thought about Dan Serafini in about five years. Their position players are mostly a hodge podge of Quad-A type guys and minor leaguers, but they also have young Cubs slugger Anthony Rizzo and Nick Punto and Chris Denorfia. That's not to say that this Italy team is great, just that they're probably the strongest team out of all of the non-traditional baseball countries in the tournament.
CanadaPretty much everyone in the Western Hemisphere was excited for one thing in the World Baseball Classic, and that one thing was watching Russell Martin play shortstop for Team Canada. I don't know why he wanted to do it, but he really, really wanted to. For a while it seemed like it was going to happen. He pulled out of the tournament a few days ago, saying that neither Team Canada nor Team Pittsburgh Pirates thought it was a good idea, and so we're left with this mess of a roster without the simple joy of watching an aging catcher play shortstop for no good reason. Thanks, Canada.
Joey Votto, Brett Lawrie, Justin Morneau … that sounds pretty nice. Just try not to look at the rest of the roster. Michael Saunders is an ex-prospect that's lost his luster. Tyson Gillies is a fringe prospect. Adam Loewen gets a gold star for still being out there as an outfielder five years since appearing in the big leagues as a pitcher. The one legitimately interesting pitcher on this team to watch is Jameson Taillon, who's a consensus top-20 prospect for the Pirates, but he's only made three starts at Double-A.
Prediction
If the US can't advance out of this pool, we should straight up just stop participating in the tournament. On one hand, I think Pool D is interesting because it's the only group in which you can't immediately dismiss the chances of any of the four teams to advance. On the other hand, it's stiltingly boring because Team USA is head and shoulders better than the other three teams and Mexico and Canada can't field teams that are obviously better than Italy's. I mean, they're better than Italy, just not by a lot. I don't know who the second team will be here. Probably Mexico, I guess. It really doesn't matter.
