By The Athletic MLB Staff
Mar 19, 2023
It’s been five years since Team USA blanked Team Puerto Rico 8-0 to win its first-ever World Baseball Classic title. And for the first time since then, the tournament is back.
Pool play for the fifth edition, which was originally scheduled for 2021 but scuttled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, began on Wednesday, March 8.
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Run by MLB, the WBC was introduced in 2006 and championed by then-commissioner Bud Selig as a way to grow the game on the international stage.
This year’s tournament features an expanded field of teams, from 16 to 20, ranging from perennial powerhouses like the U.S., Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Japan and South Korea, to first-time participants Great Britain, Nicaragua and the Czech Republic. Here’s what you need to know.
What are the dates?
The tournament starts on March 8 (though the first game, which will be played in Taiwan, starts at 11 p.m. ET on March 7) and the finals will be played on March 21.
Which teams are playing?
The field is made up of 20 teams playing in four pools.
Pool A
Chinese TaipeiNetherlandsCubaItalyPanama
Pool B
JapanKoreaAustraliaChinaCzech Republic
Pool C
United StatesCanada
MexicoColombiaGreat Britain
Pool D
Puerto RicoVenezuelaDominican RepublicIsraelNicaragua
Where are the games taking place?
For the first round, Pool A played in Taichung, Taiwan, at the Intercontinental Baseball Stadium. Pool B played at the Tokyo Dome in Japan. Pool C is at Chase Field in Phoenix, and Pool D is at loanDepot Park in Miami.
Second-round games (the quarterfinals) will be played at the Tokyo Dome (for the top two teams in Pools A and B) and loanDepot Park (for the top two teams from Pools C and D), and the semifinals and finals will be in Miami.
How can I watch? What’s the schedule?
In the U.S., the games will be available on Fox, FS1, FS2, FOX Deportes, Tubi and the Fox Sports app.
Here’s what the rest of this week’s schedule looks like:
Monday, March 20
(Semis) Japan vs. Mexico (7 p.m. ET)
Tuesday, March 21
(Finals) S1 winner vs. S2 winner (7 p.m. ET)
The complete schedule can be found here.
What is the format?
Each team meets once in the first round. The top two teams from each pool by winning percentage, eight in total, move on to the quarterfinals, which are sudden death (this is a change from 2017 when the quarterfinals also followed the round-robin format). The four quarterfinal winners head to the semis, and you know what happens after that.
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Who’s playing? Any names I’ll recognize?
Absolutely. Plenty of big names from MLB and international leagues will represent various countries. Here are a few examples:
- The entire Team USA roster
- Pretty much the entire Dominican Republic roster (think Sandy Alcantara, Julio Rodríguez, Manny Machado, Juan Soto)
- Shohei Ohtani, Yu Darvish, Masataka Yoshida, Lars Nootbaar, Roki Sasaki, reigning NPB MVP Munetaka Murakami (Japan)
- Javier Báez, Francisco Lindor, Edwin Díaz, Marcus Stroman, José Berríos (Puerto Rico)
- Freddie Freeman, Tyler O’Neill, Cal Quantrill (Canada)
- KBO MVP Lee Jung-hoo, Ha-seong Kim, Tommy Edman (Korea)
- Ronald Acuña Jr. (Venezuela), Randy Arozarena and Julio Urías (Mexico), Xander Bogaerts (Netherlands)
What are the rules?
The official rulebook, so to speak, is here for those of you who want to study it. The tournament will use the 2022 MLB rules, with a few additions. Here are some highlights:
- Each team has what’s called a designated pitcher pool, 10 pitchers who are not on the official roster but are eligible to participate in one or more consecutive rounds if need be
- Pitch limits affect how pitchers can be used (ex: if a pitcher throws 50 pitches in an outing, they can’t pitch again until a minimum of four days have passed)
- Position players can’t pitch unless they get permission from the game operations technical committee, which keeps tabs on pitcher usage
- There is a mercy rule in the first round: Games will end if there is a lead of 10 or more runs after the seventh inning and 15 runs after the fifth inning
- The ghost runner is going global — extra innings will start with a player on second base
- Since these are the 2022 rules, the pitch clock, bigger bases and shift restrictions will not be used
Why is [player name here] playing for [country name here]?
There are seven rules that determine a player’s eligibility to play for a certain team. To simplify matters, a player can represent a country if:
- They are a citizen or permanent legal resident of that country
- They are born in that country
- One of their parents is a citizen of that country
- One of their parents was born in that country
- They are eligible to receive citizenship or a passport for a country
- They have previously appeared on the final WBC roster (qualifier or tournament) for that country
How long has this tournament been around?
This is the fifth edition of the World Baseball Classic. Japan was the first-ever tournament winner, beating Cuba in the final to capture the title in 2006, and winning again in 2009. In 2013, the Dominican Republic went undefeated — the only team to do so in the tournament’s relatively short history — en route to its first WBC title. And the last time it was played, in 2017, Team USA won for the first time.
Anything else?
For updated storylines throughout the tournament, visit our WBC home base.
Follow all the action by checking out our live blog.
And to set the tone, here’s a playlist featuring artists representing every nation in the 2023 WBC — we hope you enjoy.
(Top photo of Shohei Ohtani: Kenta Harada / Getty Images)
