WBC overhaul should start with team USA pitching

by Michael Zidar, 1L
Law Weekly
March 24, 2009

On Sunday, the United States team lost to the Japanese team in the World Baseball Classic. There have been two World Baseball Classics, and neither saw the U.S. take home the crown.

Granted, the talent disparity between our home team and foreign nations isn't as egregious as it is in basketball, yet, baseball is something attributed to American culture; it is our national pastime. The first World Baseball Classic in 2006 saw the U.S. team lose in the second round, whereas this year, they lost in the semi-finals. Getting to the semi-finals is more impressive, but it is not what team USA desires; they want to win.

How can the American team improve for future years? One simple remedy is for the best American pitchers to pitch for the U.S. team. Currently, many major league organizations don't want their best pitchers to pitch in the WBC, and many pitchers themselves do not want to participate.

Not every top talent will take the field; however, a quick analysis of the top pitchers from each League shows that the United States team didn't use the best available pitchers. By looking at two simple stats, ERA and WHIP, one can quickly evaluate the pitching quality of last year.

For those who don't know, WHIP is the number of walks and hits given up per inning pitched. It doesn't measure the power of those hits, but the lower the WHIP, the better for a pitcher. For example, a pitcher with a WHIP of 1.00 puts an average of one person on base for each inning he pitched.

Using WHIP and ERA is a simple way to measure performance. The top five qualifying starting pitchers in the National League from 2008 in terms of WHIP from first to fifth were Cole Hamels, Ricky Nolasco, Dan Haren, Derek Lowe, and David Bush. In terms of ERA, the best NL pitchers were Johan Santana, Tim Lincecum, Jake Peavy, Ryan Dempster, and Ben Sheets.

The top AL WHIP leaders were Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Ervin Santana, James Shields, and Scott Baker. And for ERA in the AL, the top pitchers were Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Jon Lester, and John Danks.

Looking at those lists, a few pitchers immediately have to be eliminated from the list of possible American pitchers. Ben Sheets is injured, Cole Hamels is currently suffering from a bad elbow that may have kept him out of the WBC, and Ryan Dempster, Ervin Santana, and Johan Santana all are foreigners. One of the men on the list, Daisuke Matsuzaka, was the winning pitcher for team Japan against the United States, bringing his WBC record to 3-0 with a 2.45 ERA.

However, out of the rest of the list, John Danks was on the United States provisional roster. The only man who actually pitched for team USA was Jake Peavy. Also, my analysis of pitchers omitted a player who switched leagues halfway through the season, C.C. Sabathia. He went 11-2 in the National League with the Brewers, and had he pitched 31 and 1/3 innings more, he would have the best ERA and WHIP in the league. Of course, he also didn't pitch for the United States.

ESPN.com, like my colleague Seth Engel, is currently is complaining about the managerial decisions in the WBC. Namely, writers are upset about leaving pitchers in too long and poor decision-making.

However, team USA's actual degree of suffering from its lack of pitching quality is clear. Ted Lilly and Roy Oswalt are both fine pitchers; it's just that if the United States wants to be as dominant as they feel they should be in this tournament, at some point, MLB teams will have to allow the top American pitchers to compete against their international peers.