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© Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Nakata powers Japan to 10-2 win over U.S. at Premier12
TAIPEI, Taiwan©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
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MarkX
This is the problem with these tournaments. Japan sends its premier players, and the US and other countries send college students or minor league players. Japan wins and then claims they are the world champions. I feel it is a bit of a hollow victory when you aren't playing other countries best players.
smithinjapan
MarkX: Not only that, but what is the point of this tournament to begin with? They already have the meaningless World Baseball Classic, so what is this new tournament? How is it different?
I mean, good on Japan for crushing the US, and on their previous wins as well, but this sounds like just an excuse to showcase, not an actual tournament with any meaning for sports.
TorafusuTorasan
Since baseball and softball were dropped from the Olympics, these tournaments are supposed to maintain the story of baseball as a viable sport for reinclusion in the Olympics, at which point the excess tournaments will likely disappear. WBC is MLB controlled, and Premier 12 is not. No 40 man roster players are allwed on the US team, so roughly the top 600 baseball players from America assuming half the players in MLB are American. That may be why you don't recognize the US roster.
DaDude
Japan, Korea and Taiwan sent their best players to this tournament. Other countries also sent the best players in their own leagues that are not in the MLB. America send college students to the Olympics and to this tournament. The WBC U.S. roster is filled with major leaguers. The problem is the best players have an option to join or not and many choose not to join. So the U.S. team gets their 3rd or 4th choices per each position. If the U.S. MLB All Star players had the pride that the NBA Dream Team players had, the U.S. team could have wiped out Japan yesterday. 2017, Mike Trout and Bryce Harper needs to get their butts on this team.
TorafusuTorasan
The only way Harper and Trout could play is if they had ended the season banished to the minors. Nobody on MLB 40 man rosters, in other words star players and the best of the rest, are able to play in Premier 12. Why not? Because this is not an MLB sanctioned tourney. What is the need for players already in MLB to play in this dinky tournament? Pride? Pfffft.
bicultural
Everyone on JT always points out that Japan's baseball league is like triple A ball in America, so they should be evenly matched, no?
lostrune2
WBC is not just agreed upon by the MLB but also by the MLBPA (Player's Association).
Minor leaguers are not members of MLBPA, so with the permission of MLB, they can play in the Premier12 tournament without having to deal with the MLBPA.
kaketama
They always make an excuse for the losses. If they have the best members... Japanese baseball players can be serious for international games and perform well, but the US players cant. The US players can be serious only for money not for their country. They are saying as if they can be serious and win these games. But I doubt it.
smithinjapan
kaketama: "If they have the best members... Japanese baseball players can be serious for international games and perform well"
The key part of your comment being, "If they have the best players". The US team does not. Japan does. It should be no surprise Japan won. If both players had their best players there's no telling who would have won, but I doubt the result would have been quite as skewed.
And please don't talk about one side always making excuses, because I know many fans of certain tennis and soccer players who make the absolute saddest excuses ever heard of, and which are embarrassing to Japan; like, "Oh, the team was tired!" or, "He's/they're saving their energy!" etc. Pointing out that one team has the best players in the league and the other does not is a valid potential reason for the outcome of a game.
mrkobayashi
Sorry, I disagree. Japan's best players are in the MLB. None of them are playing this time. I seriously don't recognize half the players on the team.
smithinjapan
mrkobayashi: "I seriously don't recognize half the players on the team."
So you DO recognize the other half, then? How many Americans do you recognize? or players on other teams for that matter? I'm not saying Japan would not be winning otherwise -- not by a long shot, since, as has been mentioned, SKorea and Taiwan are also fielding some of their best. But to say that people are just making excuses by pointing it out is, well... an excuse.
kwatt
It seems that Americans are whining about they can't field the best players for Premier12, WBC, whatever International games. If they can't, that is only American's problem.