As stated in my previous post, I love almost everything about the World Baseball Classic (WBC).  The one part that I’m not completely in support of is the current tournament format.  The new change for 2009, in which the group stages are now based on a ‘double elimination’ rule as opposed to following the round-robin format , only exemplifies the issue.  I’ve therefore put together an alternative format that not only solves the current problems (as I see them) but would also produce a higher number of unique match-ups in the first two rounds. 

Firstly, to explain all of this I need to refer you to the ‘double elimination’ rule diagram and the tournament format diagram.  These should help you through all of the ‘pools’ ,’rounds’ and ‘games’ references.

My biggest complaint about the format as it currently stands is that it follows the ‘brackets’ system.  In a tournament where the first two rounds are group stages, this just does not work.  For example, the two teams that make it through Pool A both go into the same pool (in this case Pool 1) for the second round.  This means that you are bound to get matches in the second round that repeat some of those that have just taken place in the first round.  In a short tournament due to be staged only once every four years from 2009 onwards, why would you want that?  Surely it makes for a more entertaining competition to create the highest number of unique games possible?

Under the 2006 rules, they even took this a step further by keeping the teams in their brackets for the semi-finals.  This meant that Japan and Korea faced in each other in the first round, second round and then the semi-final.  Thankfully, they have revised this by splitting up the Round 2 winners and runners-up this time around (e.g. the winner of Pool 1 faces the runner-up of Pool 2), but they should go a step further and get rid of the brackets linking rounds 1 and 2 as well.

In my alternative format, Round 2 would involve a Pool 1 containing the winners of Pools A and B alongside the runners-up from Pools C and D.  Pool 2 would then contain the winners of Pools C and D alongside the runners-up from Pools A and B.  This way, the second round will not have any repeat contests from the first round. 

To see how this would work in practice, let’s put together an example based on a first round that ended like this:

Pool A: W=Korea, RU=Japan, Pool B: W=Cuba, RU=Mexico, Pool C: W=US, RU=Venezuela, Pool D: W=Dominican Republic, RU=Puerto Rico.

(and countrymen of the teams involved should take no offence from this – it’s just for the purposes of an example, not my predictions for what I think will happen!).

In the actual format, the two second round pools would be:
Pool 1 = Korea, Japan, Cuba, Mexico.
Pool 2 = US, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico.

Not half bad on their own I’m sure you’ll agree, but in each case there could be duplicate matches from the first round.  In my format, the second round would be:

Pool 1 = Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Puerto Rico.
Pool 2 = US, Dominican Republic, Japan, Mexico.

Once again, there’s some great games in prospect there, but this time they would all be unique from the first round.

Clearly there is going to be some duplication during the tournament whichever way you slice it (unless you held a straight knock-out tournament, which would be a terrible idea not worth considering).  As with the actual 2009 format, the winners from each Round 2 pool would face the runner-up from the opposite pool in the semi-final; so you could have two teams that were joined in Round 1 facing each other again.  Similarly two teams that faced each other in Round 1, or two teams that faced each other in Round 2, could meet in the final.  The advantage with my format though is that any duplication is broken up by at least one round.

The benefits are increased when you consider the impact that the new ‘double elimination’ rule, introduced for 2009, will have.  Watching Japan and Korea face each other in three rounds was pushing it already.  The ‘double elimination’ rule creates the possibility that two teams could conceivably face each other five times, which in a short tournament would be overkill to say the very least.

Forecasting how the tournament might play out is tricky because we don’t yet know how the teams will be organized for the first games of each pool.  All we know is that Team 1 will play Team 2, and Team 3 will play Team 4.  For Round 2 you would assume that in each pool the two winners from the first round stages would play the runner up from the other pool in their first game (otherwise why bother having a final game in the first round to determine the pool winner?).  The first round is less easy to predict, although again we could make the assumption that the two favourites would be kept apart in the first games on a seeding basis. 

With that in mind, let’s work through a scenario beginning from Pool A to see how two teams could meet five times.

Japan and Korea would be the two favourites, so they would be kept apart for games 1 and 2 but if they both won then they would face each other in Game 3.  The winner, for argument’s sake Korea, would go straight through to Game 6.  If Japan won game 5 to qualify for the next round, they would once again face Korea in Game 6 to decide the pool winner.

Under the current system, Korea and Japan would go through to the next round together as the winners and runner-up from Pool A to face the winners and runners up from Pool B.  If they were split up for Games 1 and 2 (as would make sense) and both won, they would again face each other in Game 3 and should the loser qualify for the semi-finals, they would meet for the fourth time in Game 6.

They would be split up for the semi-finals, but if they both won then they would meet for the fifth time in the final.

Now, there are a lot of ‘ifs’ involved in that scenario so you may feel this is a moot point; however the fact that it is a possibility is reason enough to support my alternative format.

The WBC will be an exciting event next year regardless of the limitations imposed by the current format.  Still, it’s always worth looking at ways in which an already excellent competition can be improved.  What’s more, I will gladly waive my consultancy fee if the WBC organizing committee sees fit to adopt my proposal. 

Although a spot for Great Britain in the 2013 event, and maybe a few free tickets for BaseballGB writers, wouldn’t go amiss as a ‘thank you’.