I hate starting off my mornings agreeing with Max Scherzer but unfortunately that’s how we’ll begin this Tuesday. 

Scherzer joined the Foul Territory Podcast to discuss the World Baseball Classic and how to fix it so the best starting pitchers in Major League Baseball will actually participate. 

Scherzer, much like the majority of starting pitchers in the MLB decided to not participate in the WBC due to health concerns. 

The main issue for Scherzer and others in his position don’t feel like they would be ready to pitch by the time the World Baseball Classic begins. The start date for the WBC was March 7th and pitchers were not “ramped up” in time to join their countries in the tournament. 

Scherzer suggested that the World Baseball Classic should be pushed back a few weeks to allowing starting pitchers in the MLB to play. 

“If the pitchers can get fully ramped up, if you let me get those five or six starts in … start the WBC the last week of spring training once we’ve built up and then run the thing through the first week of the season”

“Whatever you do with the games, whether you backfill those with doubleheaders or you move to (a 154-game season), whatever the semantics are of solving that. Then all the major pitchers who participate are fully ramped up.”

“That’s the No. 1 concern with this and why guys didn’t want to participate. You need spring training. You need to get built up for 100 pitches before you want to step into a game where everything’s on the line.”

Max Scherzer on How to Fix the World Baseball Classic

The World Baseball Classic is an awesome tournament and I feel like this year specifically, it drew a lot more fans. Moving the start date so it’s actually the first week of the MLB season makes total sense.

The first few weeks of baseball, while special, are somewhat meaningless because of how long the MLB season actually is, so losing 10 of 162 games in an Major League Baseball sponsored tournament seems like an easy move. 

There has to be a way to figure this out so everyone can participate. The World Cup figured it out and they have players from all over the world representing their countries.

MLB owners need to find a way to get this sorted out so their players can do the same. Even if you pushed the season back a week, you could still probably get a full season of 162 games played in the MLB. 

I’m into it. More meaningful baseball the better. 

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