Finally, there is Pool D.  Participants in this pool will be Venezuela, Australia, Italy and The Dominican Republic.  This bracket will be played out at the Disney Wide World of Sports Stadium in Orlando, Florida over the same period as Pool B and Pool C.  This pool gives us the best match up on the opening day of pool play with the Venezuela team playing The Dominican Republic on March 7^th at 1:00PM.

Currently, these games are being advertised as being shown on the ESPN family of networks, with ESPNDeportes showing the most games.  ESPN2 will be showing some of the preliminary round games from each pool.  ESPN will be showing all the semi-final and finals action live.  You can find the entire schedule and TV schedule at World Baseball Classic: Schedule.  I believe the TV schedule will be under constant pressure to show more games on the regular ESPN networks, depending on fan interest; so all schedules are subject to change.

The Cleveland Indians currently have 9 players from their organization scheduled to play.  Indians playing for the Dominican Republic team are Jhonny Peralta, his double-play partner Ronnie Belliard and newly acquired reliever Guillermo Mota.  Highlighting the Venezuelan team from the Indians will be catcher Victor Martinez.  Joining Victor on the Venezuelan team will be reliever Rafael Betancourt and minor league outfielder Franklin Guiterrez.  Eduardo Perez, signed in the off-season, will be on the Puerto Rico roster, along with relief pitcher Fernando Cabrera.  Our old friend who has returned to the Tribe this off-season, Einar Diaz will be on the Panamanian roster. 

Here are some of the rules, which teams in the WBC must abide by.  Each tem needed to submit a provisional roster, which had no real limits on it.  Players could be on more than one provisional roster, which is what lead to the Alex Rodriguez flip-flop debacle.  Once the provisional rosters were set, teams have until 5 days before their first game to submit a 30-man roster.  This 30-man roster is what you are taking to the dance with you.  If a player gets injured in the tournament, you may petition for him to be placed on the disabled list.  Once that permission is granted, that player can be replaced, but not until the start of the next round.  Once you reach the semi-finals, no player may be replaced.  The most important rules added for the WBC are to protect the pitchers.  In round one, you are not allowed to start a new batter once you have reached 65 pitches.  In the second round, that increases to 80 pitches.  For the semis and finals, you will be allowed to throw 95 pitches.  Also, if you have thrown more than 50 pitches in a game, you are not allowed to pitch for four more days.  If you throw between 30 and 49 pitches in a game, you cannot pitch the next day.  Finally, no pitcher is allowed to throw three consecutive days, no matter what.  There will also be a mercy rule for this tournament, and it will probably be used at least a couple of times.  If you are leading by 10 or more after 7 innings, you win.  If you are ahead by 15 after 5 innings you win.  I definitely think the better teams will try to take advantage of this rule whenever possible.    Could you imagine Team USA manger bunting someone over in the bottom of the 5^th to scratch run 15 across the board and save his bullpen for another game!

In my opinion, the World Baseball Classic will be great for baseball.  That is great for baseball in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.  Fans of these countries will take pride in the effort and results of their team.  Maybe even Australia, or Canada could pull off a couple of upsets and raise the notoriety of the game in their countries.  I just don’t think it is going to be all that big of a deal here in the US.  Obviously ESPN isn’t thinking too highly of the event either, which explains the questionable choice of ESPNDeportes as the main broadcast channel.  Of course, you can pay MLB $9.95 and watch all the games over your broadband Internet connection.

The second round of the tournament will be played just like round one.  In the second round the pools are numbered instead of lettered, so the top 2 teams from Pool A and Pool B will combine into Pool 1 and play round robin.  Pool C and Pool D will play round robin in newly formed Pool 2.  Pool 1 should consist of Japan and Chinese Taipei advancing along with The United States and Mexico.  Pool 2 is going to be loaded with possibly 3 of the 4 best teams in the tournament.  Cuba and Puerto Rico should come out of Pool C, while The Dominican Republic and Venezuela will come out of Pool D.  Round 2 games will be played at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California and Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan Puerto Rico, between March 12^th and March 16th.  In the semi-finals, the runner-up from Pool 1 plays the winner of Pool 1.  This will pit Team USA against Japan at 7:00 PM at Petco Park in San Diego on March 18^th   Prior to that game, the 2 best teams in the tournament will match up in the other semi-final when the loaded pitching staff of Venezuela matches up against the lethal line up of the Dominican Republic at 3:00 PM in San Diego.