U.S. second to Cuba in world baseball rankings; Japan 4th

The rankings based on available talent pool, and not on finishes in select international competitions:

1)U.S.A.: (Still has the largest number of talented players top to bottom.)

2)Dominican Republic: (The top-notch performances of this island nation's best for decades speaks for itself.)

3)Japan: (Some exceptional individual talents to be sure, but the overall level of play in NPB has regressed as this decade has progressed.)

4)S. Korea: (Has gotten the job done in a number of international competitions in recent years, but lacks the overall talent and depth of the aforementiioned countries, and its pro league doesn't stack up against NPB, and obviously pales in comparison to MLB.)

5)Cuba: (The talent pool is a far cry from what it used to be prior to this decade, but they still do an admirable job with what is left to them after the numerous defections to MLB, many of whom do not measure up once they have to play a 162-game season against most of the world's best players, instead of the half-ass short competitions where a lot of the world's best from elsewhere do not show up.)

6-10: A pick'em from Venezuela, Taiwan, Mexico, Canada and Australia.

(I didn't include Puerto Rico as a seperate entry because some of their players choose to play for the U.S. team in the WBC, and some do not.)

Just proves how poor those rankings really are. Anyone with common sense would go: 1. South Korea 2. Cuba 3. USA. Japan would be lucky to get 4th. The Beijing Olympics results should give most priority because it was the most recent tournament in which all the major baseball nations took part in and fielded full-strength competitive teams. South Korea beat everyone in sight so I don't understand how the teams that lost to them go above them ?

Ranking upto Best Three, 2nd place for SKorea would have been too embarrassing for USA/MLB. Cuba's top position seems undisputable. Congratulations to BIG3 !