Japanese Imperialism

We all agree the WBC is meaningless, right? I guess Ichiro didn't get the memo. Here's his take on Japan's 1-0 loss to South Korea,

"I am angry at the fact that we lost," he said. "It would have been great if we had crushed them."

Quick WBC Notes

-The Netherlands beat the Dominican Republic! Twice! This mean that the Netherlands advance to the next round and the DR does not! The DR with Big Papi, Edison Volquez, Pedro, Robinson Cano was defeated by Sidney Ponson and.... um... 24 other guys I've never heard of (OK, 23 guys, Ponson, and Rick VandenHurk)! The DR lost! They have 23 major league players and they lost! Think about crazy that is!
-But as Cubs fan, you guys should happy DR lost because Carlos Marmol now does not have to put extra strain on his arm
-At first I was upset that MLB players were in the WBC. Then I realized the WBC could be very advantageous to hitters but still pretty detrimental to pitchers. Then I realized there was only 3 starters per team. And then I realized that really only half of the teams in the WBC HAVE major competitive pitchers and then a good chunk of those teams get eliminated in the first round, so not a whole lot of major MLB pitchers really pitch a lot. Although still, Jake Peavy and Roy Oswalt are gonna get hurt in '09. Probably.
-Also, no White Sox pitchers are in the WBC so I'm happy and this probably biases my last point
-I don't care about the WBC still yet I'm really rooting for the US to win it all. I think if the U.S. wins it all, it will legitimize the Classic. Plus with the Olympics canceling baseball, this only helps the WBC. But as for right now, I just don't care.

Official WBC Rosters

World Baseball Classic rosters are officially set. Grady Sizemore's already out of the mix with a strained groin and will be replaced by Shane Victorino. Click the links below to see who is on what team.

Australia
Canada
China
Chinese Taipei
Cuba
Dominican Republic
Italy
Japan
Korea
Mexico
Netherlands
Panama
Puerto Rico
South Africa
USA
Venezuela

If I was Cubs management, I would very angry that Ted Lilly, who has thrown career highs in IP in back to back years, and Carlos Zambrano, the dehydration prone workhorse who finally broke down late last season, are on the finalized rosters.

2009 WBC Provisional Rosters

The (relevant) World Baseball Classic Rosters

United States
C - Brian McCann, Chris Ianetta, A.J. Pierzynski, Brian Schneider
1B - Derrek Lee, Kevin Youkilis
2B - Mark DeRosa. Dustin Pedroia, Brian Roberts
SS - Derek Jeter, Jimmy Rollins
3B - Chipper Jones, Evan Longoria, David Wright
OF - Ryan Braun, Curtis Granderson, Brad Hawpe, Ryan Ludwick, Carlos Quentin, Grady Sizemore, Shane Victorino, Vernon Wells
SP - John Danks, Jeremy Guthrie, Scott Kazmir, John Lackey, Ted Lilly, Roy Oswalt, Jake Peavy
RP -Jonathan Broxton, Joey Devine, Brian Fuentes, J.P. Howell, Matt Lindstrom, Joe Nathan, J.J. Putz, Chad Qualls, B.J. Ryan, George Sherrill, Scot Shields, Matt Thorton, Justin Verlander, Brad Ziegler

Dominican Republic:
C - Wilkin Castillo, Miguel Olivo, Ronny Paulino
1B - Carlos Pena, Albert Pujols
2B - Adrian Beltre, Robinson Cano, Placido Polanco
SS - Jhonny Peralta, Hanley Ramirez, Jose Reyes, Miguel Tejada
3B - Aramis Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez
OF - Moises Alou, Melky Cabrera, Vladamir Guerrero, Jose Guillen, Alfonso Soriano, Willy Taveras
SP - Daniel Cabrera, Fausto Carmona, Johnny Cueto, Ualdo Jimenez, Fransisco Liriano, Pedro Martinez, Odalis Perez, Wandy Rodriguez, Ervin Santana, Edison Volquez
RP - Jose Arredondo, Santiago Casilla, Fransisco Cordero, Juan Cruz, Octavio Dotel, Carlos Marmol, Damaso Marte, Tony Pena, Rafael Perez, Edwar Ramirez, Ramon Ramirez, Frenando Rodney, Jose Valverde, Jose Veras

Venezuela:
C - Henry Blanco, Ramon Hernandez, Dioner Navarro, Humberto Quintero, Max Ramirez, Pablo Sandoval
1B - Carlos Guillen, Oscar Salazar
2B - Alex Cabrera, Jose Lopez
SS - Cesar Izturis, Macier Izturis, Marco Scutaro, Omar Visquel
3B - Miguel Cabrera, Melvin Mora
INF - Edgar Alonzo, Jose Castillo, Jesus Guzman
OF - Bobby Abreu, George Blanco, Endy Chavez, Carlos Gonzalez, Magglio Ordonez, Gerardo Parra, Juan Rivera
SP - Armando Galarraga, Angel Guzman, Felix Hernandez, Anibal Sanchez, Johan Santana, Carlos Silva, Carlos Zambrano
RP - Jose Ascanio, Rafael Bentacourt, Carlos Carrasco, Cesar Jimenez, Jorge Julio, Jose Mijares, Victor Moreno, Fernando Nieve, Renyel Pinto, Juan Rincon, Fransisco Rodriguez, Victor Zambrano

Puerto Rico:
C - Raul Casanova, Bengie Molina, Yadier Molina, Pudge, Geovany Soto, Javier Valentin
1B - Carlos Delgado
2B - Felipe Lopez
SS - Mike Aviles, Alex Cora,
3B - Mike Lowell, Ramon Vasquez
INF - Ivan DeJesus, Luis Figueroa, Andy Gonzalez, Jose Valentin,
OF - Carlos Beltran, Hiram Bocachica, Jesus Feliciano, Luis Matos, Alex Rios, Andres Torres, Bernie Williams
SP - Jonathan Sanchez, Ian Snell, Javier Vasquez, Joel Pineiro
RP - Giancarlo Alvarado, Federico Baez, Fernando Cabrera, Kiko Calero, Pedro Feliciano, Nelson Figueroa, Javier Lopez, Ivan Maldonado, Josue Matos, Juan Padilla, Saul Rivera, Orlando Roman, J.C. Romero, Jose Santiago, Tomas Santiago

Canada:
C - Cole Armstrong, Luke Carlin, George Kottaras, Pete Laforest, Brett Lawrie, Russell Martin, Chris Robinson, Max St. Pierre
1B - Justin Morneau, Joey Votto
2B - Pete Orr
SS - Chris Barnwell, Cale Iorg
3B - Shawn Bowman
OF - Jason Bay, Matt Stairs, Mark Teahen, Aaron Guile, Jamie Romak, Adam Stern, Nicholas Weglarz
SP - Chris Begg, Jesse Crain, Jeff Francis, Rich Harden
RP - Eric Gange, David Davidson
P - Phillipe Aumont, James Avery, T.J. Burton, Rheal Cormier, Eric Cyr, Scott Diamond, Bryan Dumesnil, Steve Green, Blake Hawksworth, Mike Johnson, Christopher Leroux, Kyle Lotzkar, Brooks McNiven, Alex Periard, Vince Perkings, Scott Richmond, R.J. Swindle, Phillipe-Alexandre Valiquette

Mexico:
C - Rod Barajas, Humberto Cota, Genonimo Gil, Miguel Ojeda
1B - Adrian Gonzalez
2B - Luis Cruz, Edgar Gonzalez, Augie Ojeda
SS - Jerry Hariston Jr., Omar Quintanilla
3B - Jorge Cantu, Freddy Sandoval
INF - Juan Castro, Erubiel Durazo, Augstin Murillo, Oscar Robles, Jorge Vasquez
OF - Alfredo Amezaga, Karim Garcia, Scott Hariston, Cristhian Presichi, Mario Vanezuela
SP - Matt Garza, Yovanni Gallardo, Jorge De La Rosa, Jorge Campillo, Oliver Perez
RP - Joakim Soria, Eddie Guardado, Luis Mendoza, Ricardo Rincon, Denny Reyes, Oscar Villarreal
P - Luis Ayala, Fransisco Campos, David Cortes, Elmer Dessens, Rafael Diaz, Edgar Gonzalez, Arturo Lopez, Rodrigo Lopez, Pablo Ortega, Heriberto Ruelas

Japan:
C - Kenji Johjima, Sinnosuke Abe, Toru Hosokawa, Yoshiyuki Ishihara, Shinji Takahashi
2B - Akinori Iwamura
INF - Yasuyuki Kataoka, Menenori Kawasaki, Kenta Kurihara, Nobuhiko Matsunaka, Suichi Murata, Hiroyuki Nakajima, Tsuyoshi Nishioka, Michihiro Ogasawara, Kensuke Tanaka
OF - Norichika Aoki, Kazuki Fukuchi, Kosuke Fukudome, Arsunoria Inaba, Yoshiyuki Kamei, Ichiro Suzuki, Seiichi Uchikawa
SP - Dice-K, Yu Darvish
RP - Masahide Kobayashi, Hideki Okajima
P - Kyuji Fujikawa, Hisashi Iwakuma, Minoru Iwata, Takayuki Kishi, Satoshi Komatsu, Takahiro Mahara, Katsuhiro Nagakawa, Toshiya Sugiuchi, Masaru Takeda, Masahiro Tanaka, Hayato Tehara, Tetsuya Utsumi, Tsuyoshi Wada, Hideaki Wakui, Shunsuke Wantanabe, Tetsuya Yamaguchi

Panama: the big names
C - Carlos Ruiz
OF - Carlos Lee
RP - Manny Acosta, Manny Corpas

Italy: the big names (no Mike Piazza)
C - Mike Napoli, Vinny Rottino
1B - Frank Catalanotto
SS - Nick Punto
RP - Jason Grilli, Mike DiFelice

The Netherlands: the big names (no Andruw Jones)
SP - Jair Jurrjens
RP - Rich VandenHurk

Australia: the big names
SP - Drew Naylor
RP - Grant Balfour, Ryan Rowland-Smith, Phil Stockman

Korea: the big names
OF - Shin-Soo Choo

Chinese Taipei: the big names (no Chien-Ming Wang)
No MLB players

China: the big names
No MLB players

Cuba: the big names
No MLB players

South Africa: the big names
No MLB players

The Cubs Should Be Angry With The Provisional WBC Rosters

When you are paying millions of dollars for top caliber athletes, the last thing you want to do is expose players to extended workloads -- especially if they are already injury prone.

Rich Harden, who has a history of injury and is currently rehabbing a "minor labrum tear" that often warrants surgery to repair, was listed as a provisional player on the Canadian roster. Harden also threw 110 innings over what he did in 2007. All flags point to GM Jim Hendry pulling Harden from the WBC as an injury risk.

Alfonso Soriano, who has had leg injuries each of the last two years that have kept him out of a cumulative 65+ games, is slated to play for the Dominican Republic.

Carlos Marmol, who played in over one-half of the Cubs games last year (82 games, 87 innings), is also slated to pitch for the Dominican Republic.

Then there is Carlos Zambrano, whose career of heavy workload put him on the DL in late August/September, is set to throw for Venezuela.

Ted Lilly is set to pitch for the USA, despite throwing career highs in innings each of the last two years.

Finally, there is Geovany Soto (Puerto Rico), who needs to work with the pitching staff during spring training (not the WBC team)

All in all, you have guys with heavy workloads and looming injuries slated to add to their 162-game long season. That's just a recipe for disaster. Recall Peavy's 2006 season; the added workload from the WBC ultimately tired him out enough to add a full run and a half to his end of season ERA.

The World Baseball Classic Information

I have detailed as much important WBC info as I could find across the internet (from rules to rosters) in this post. Please comment with more unlisted information as it becomes available to help me keep this thread up-to-date.

Finally, since I have no clue as to which players (other than David Ortiz) will be slotted in the DH role during the WBC, I'm simply going to list every player at their most probable position (based on NL game play)

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The (relevant) World Baseball Classic Rosters

United States
C - Brian McCann, Chris Ianetta
1B - Kevin Youkilis
2B - Dustin Pedroia, Mark DeRosa
SS - Derek Jeter, Jimmy Rollins
3B - David Wright, Chipper Jones
OF - Grady Sizemore, Ryan Braun, Curtis Granderson
SP - Jake Peavy, John Lackey, Roy Oswalt
RP - Joe Nathan, Brian Fuentes, Scot Shields, Jonathan Broxton, B.J. Ryan, J.J. Putz, Matt Thorton, Matt Lindstrom

Dominican Republic:
C -
1B - David Ortiz
2B -
SS - Jose Reyes
3B - A-Rod
OF -
SP -
RP -

Venezuela:
C -
1B - Miguel Cabrera
2B -
SS -
3B -
OF - Bobby Abreu, Magglio
SP - Johan Santana, Carlos Zambrano
RP - Fransisco Rodriguez

Puerto Rico:
C - Pudge, Yadier Molina
1B - Albert Pujols, Carlos Delgado
2B -
SS -
3B -
OF -Carlos Beltran
SP -
RP -
Unconfirmed - Geovany Soto

Canada:
C - Russell Martin
1B - Justin Morneau, Joey Votto
2B -
SS -
3B -
OF - Jason Bay, Matt Stairs, Mark Teahen
SP -
RP -
Unconfirmed: Ryan Dempster, Eric Gange

Japan:
C - Kenji Johjima
1B -
2B - Akinori Iwamura
SS -
3B -
OF - Ichiro
SP - Dice-K, Yu Darvish
RP - Hideki Okajima
Unconfirmed -Takashi Saito, Kosuke Fukudome

The Netherlands:
C -
1B -
2B -
SS -
3B -
OF - Andruw Jones
SP - Jair Jurrjens
RP -

Panama:
C -
1B -
2B -
SS -
3B -
OF -
SP -
RP - Mariano Rivera, Manny Acosta, Manny Corpas

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The Set Up Of The WBC
The WBC is initially broken up into brackets pools (A,B,C,D) of four teams; two teams emerge from each pool in round one following a best-of-three series. Round two breaks the remaining teams into two pools, one consisting of the top two teams from Pools A & B and one of the top two teams from Pools C & D. Round two is also a best-of-three series. For round three, the top team in each pool plays the second best team from the other pool in a single-elimination game. The winners of each round three game will advance to the final round, where they will play a single-elimination game in Los Angeles.

2009 WBC Brackets
POOL A (Tokyo): China, Japan, Korea, Chinese Taipei*
POOL B (Mexico City): Mexico, Cuba, South Africa, Australia
POOL C (Toronto): Canada, USA, Venezuela, Italy
POOL D (San Juan): Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Panama, The Netherlands
*Taipei's league is restricting many of the top players from participating in the WBC

WBC Dates
Round 1: March 5-12
Round 2: March 14-19
Round 3: March 21 & 22
Championship Game: March 23

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Rules

A pitcher cannot pitch until

1. a minimum of four days have passed since he last pitched, if he threw 50 or more pitches when he last pitched.
2. a minimum of one day has passed since he last pitched, if he threw 30 or more pitches when he last pitched.
3. a minimum of one day has passed since any second consecutive day on which the pitcher pitched.

A pitcher cannot pitch more than

1. 65 pitches per game in Round One of the tournament.
2. 80 pitches per game in Round Two of the tournament.
3. 95 pitches per game in the Semifinals and Final of the tournament.

• A pitcher can still finish a batter's plate appearance even if the limit is reached, but must come out after completing the plate appearance.

A game will be a called game if the leading team is ahead by

1. 10 or more runs when the opposing team has batted in at least seven innings.
2. 15 or more runs when the opposing team has batted in at least five innings.

The DH rule applies for all the games.

Rules Source: Wikipedia
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I will update this thread as more (reliable) information becomes available