WBC vs. Owners
This is no longer particularly timely but I still think it is interesting.
The World Baseball Classic is a great idea but one injury to a star player will kill participation by MLB teams. Owners and coaches are not happy, I’m sure, with sending their players off to play in the classic because of the fear of injury. Their star player is managed by someone who hasn’t worked with them, ever. Doesn’t intimately know their planned rehab regiment. Doesn’t know them period. However, form what I’ve learned, the WBC is a MLB sponsored event and because of that they insist that players participate. I’m sure the players want to play, that’s what they do. However, this is not in the best interest of the teams.
So over the family dinner table we came up with a plan. MLB must guarantee the contracts of the players if they get injured. It’s still a losing proposition for teams if their player goes down as their team would certainly not do as well as with their star. So, they lose on revenue in many forms. But, at least they’d get reimbursed for that year’s salary.
MLB, you can’t just shanghi players and not take responsibility for them.
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I have a big plan for the WBC. Hold it in November instead of during Spring Training. All during the MLB playoffs there would be advertising promoting the upcoming WBC and as soon as the World Series ended the WBC would begin. Furthermore, they could take advantage of Thanksgiving weekend for a big ratings boost in the US. Sure people watch football on Thanksgiving, but then they can add the WBC semis the day after Thanksgiving and the WBC final the Sunday night after Thanksgiving. The other big advantage here is that if a player is injured in the WBC he has all winter to recover. The one loss is that players in MLB championship series and World Series (not to mention the Japan series) may have to opt out since they won’t have time to train with their national teams, but star players are opting out as it is so I don’t think it would be a big change.