The IBAF released a new set of world rankings Tuesday after the World Baseball Classic. And the winner is……Cuba! Congrats to the new champs. Second place goes to Korea, and Japan finished a distand third.
Cuba’s WBC Victory Earns it Top Spot in IBAF Rankings
March 26th, 2009 Jackson · 7 Comments
Tags: Baseball · Truth Stranger than Fiction · Weird
7 responses so far ↓
1 Shinsano // Mar 26, 2009 at 12:43 pm
That is “weird.” They have a system for figuring this kind of thing out, but obviously it’s got some flaws. Might not be weighted properly.
2 CJ // Mar 26, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Clearly the IBAF is taking a cue from FIFA. Ask any football (soccer) fan around the world about the FIFA rankings and you’re pretty much guaranteed to get a combo of an eye roll, a grimace, a head shake, and maybe even a muttered curse word or two.
3 Shinsano // Mar 26, 2009 at 2:38 pm
I’m all for the rankings, in general, and I’m glad the IBAF is trying to get something like this going.
Heck, I watch this stuff enough. I think following the WBC you’d have put Japan at the top, followed by Korea and then Cuba.
It’s hard to rate the Latin American teams though, since their WBC teams are so much better than their amature teams.
4 DJ // Mar 27, 2009 at 1:31 am
I’ve said it too many times before, but I’ll say it again: The only thing the IBAF rankings truly rank is a countries’ participation in IBAF-sanctioned events. The rankings are a crock, and are designed for only one purpose: To promote the IBAF.
5 Bruce B // Mar 28, 2009 at 12:22 pm
So true. In the IBAF rankings, they have the Dominican Republic at #16…behind Canada, Australia, Panama, Italy, China and, if you can believe it, Nicaragua. Does anybody buy this?
Shoot, even at #10, Puerto Rico is behind Taiwan, The Netherlands, Canada and Australia. As things stand now, I doubt any of those four countries could beat Puerto Rico in a best-0f-7 series.
The IBAF rankings are like Cyndi Lauper in the 80’s…fun, but not to be taken seriously.
6 simon // Mar 29, 2009 at 2:41 am
Do any Caribbean countries send even half-decent teams (if at all) to amateur baseball championships? (apart from Cuba) My image is that almost all players are too busy trying to get signed by MLB organizations.
7 CJ // Mar 29, 2009 at 4:20 am
That’s the thing with the Dominican and other countries in Latin America besides Cuba, they don’t send out amateur teams to IBAF-sanctioned events. So take that into account whenever the IBAF rankings appear. It’s really not a good baseball “power poll” for the quality of players at all levels.
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