Wait who is playing in this tournament thing? And is it a big bracket like college basketball or pool play like the World Cup? I hear there’s a mercy rule. In fact I hear there are two different mercy rules. Hold on, there’s a minimum day’s rest for pitchers? And a pitch count? So you’re telling me if Puerto Rico is playing the Dominican Republic in a late first round elimination game, and Javier Vazquez is pitching a surprise 2007 like gem and he’s got a 1-0 count to David Ortiz in a 1-1 game some where around the 5^th inning, Vazquez is going to have to stop pitching if he just threw his 65^th pitch?!?! This sounds like little league. Why not just let everyone bat before  returning to the top of the order?

No wonder the World Baseball Classic isn’t getting the reaction they were hoping for. They’re organizing the soccer equivalent of a “friendly” between teams that don’t have nearly enough star power or big name attraction to make it worth caring about.

The number of 2008 All-Star pitchers playing in the WBC is not surprisingly minuscule. It is obvious why MLB teams wouldn’t want their pitchers, especially their starters, to participate in the WBC so I won’t waste anyone’s time explaining. Nor should anyone reading this entry become extremely upset because they think that I don’t know how stupid it would be to let C.C Sabathia hurl 7 innings against Johan Santana in a basically meaningless tournament game in the middle of spring training. I get it. It would be stupid.

That doesn’t change the fact that from my standpoint the lack of star quality pitching makes the WBC simply unappealing. Here are the 3 pitchers from last year’s all-star game playing in the 2009 World Baseball Classic: Francisco (K-Rod) Rodgriquez (NYM/VEN), Joakim Soria (KCR/MEX), and Edinso Volquez (CINN/DOM). K-Rod offers us the most exciting display, but it is obvious he is only going to showcase one inning a game, which is plenty of K-Rod for me because I happen to find him irritating and obnoxious. As for the other two pitchers…I dare you to not have to google them up.

I’ve found that most fans watch the World Baseball Classic to see how players from their favorite MLB teams are preparing for the regular season and not to cheer on their home country. If anyone ever expects a huge World Cup like response to the WBC they’ll have to find a way to encourage baseball fans to root for their nation and not their favorite players. Oh and not having it played during March Madness might help as well.

But I do realize that people still watch it, not many, but some, and as a baseball fan who as a kid watched winter Caribbean league games to hold himself over until spring I understand that you can’t argue with more baseball and I’ll probably watch most of it. After all Derek is playing along with some other Bombers and Bomber prospects. Here’s our list:

P-Kai Liu

INF-Zhenwang Zhang

P-Edwar Ramirez

P-Jose Veras

P-Damaso Marte

SS-Derek Jeter

2B-Robinson Cano

3B-Alex Rodgriquez

C-Franxisoco Cervelli

P-Alfredo Aceves

INF-Jorge Vazquez

I’m most interested in watching Robinson Cano because no matter how many times I tell myself its only March and that it doesn’t count, his performance will either jog my memory of his glorious 2006 season (.342BA 97 RBI 19HR .525SLG) or his disastrous 2008 season (.271BA 72RBI 14HR .410 SLG). The WBC could get Robbie warmed-up and help prevent another April like last year (.151BA .211 OBP .236 SLG) and perhaps facilitate an April that more resembles 2006 (.316BA .341 OBP .443SLG). It’ll be interesting to see how he does in his first WBC and I’ll be keeping a very close eye on him from March through the beginning of the season.

I’m also eager to see how our bullpen participants perform. Edwar Ramirez will be lacing up his spikes for the Dominican Republic. He looked promising last year while the rest of the troubled Yankee pen did not. He is a very streaky player who can look lights out for 11 games and then horrendous for 8. I’d like to see some consistency out of him early, something any ball club wants out of their bullpen but something the Yankees are going need if they expect to win the AL East.

Damaso Marte is also playing for DR this year. He was a late acquisition last year for the Yanks and he too showed some promise like Ramirez. As basically our only lefty in the pen at the end of the year he did ok. But most of his better than average numbers last year came from his time in Pittsburgh and for the Yankees he often lacked dependability or dominance in clutch situations.

Melky Cabrera will be interesting to watch as he battles for a starting center field spot over Brett Gardner. We know he has the range and the arm but we’re seriously dumbfounded by his lack of offense last season and hope it was just a fluke. It’ll be interesting to have Cabrera playing in the WBC while Gardner is in Tampa as they battle for a starting job.

Alfredo Aceves should get a few looks from Yankee fans as well. He was called up and made his debut on Aug 31^st of last year and played well in 30 innings over 6 appearances. He went 1-0 and had a 2.40ERA but that was only one month and since that isn’t nearly enough time to judge a guy he’ll get some attention from me as he pitches for Mexico.

So despite my somewhat harsh words about the WBC and it not being exciting, I’ll be tuning in because baseball starting is thrilling in any form. I’ll be cheering for the US and hoping Alex Rodgriguez stays out of trouble and tries to take a cue from all this bad press, stops loving himself and just plays baseball.

The World Baseball Classic: 3 cheers for B-level baseball in copycat form brought to us by annoying ESPN in your face never shut up coverage.