Why the US hasn’t won the World Baseball Classic yet

If you aren’t familiar with the WBC, think of it like the World Cup except with fewer teams and more of a regional composition. Most of the teams are from the Americas or Asia. Over the weekend, the United States national team punched its ticket to the tournament semi-finals with a dramatic 6-3 win over the Dominican Republic in an elimination game. The win included a monster Giancarlo Stanton home run and Adam Jones robbing his regular season teammate from the Baltimore Orioles of a home run.

Although the U.S. team’s run has certainly been dramatic, the previous three U.S. teams all failed to finish higher than fourth in the tournament. In fact, the U.S. team are considered underdogs against the undefeated Japanese team in the semifinals, and the U.S. would be underdogs if they faced undefeated Puerto Rico in the final.

This raises the question: Why hasn’t the country that invented baseball been more successful in the WBC?

Examining the teams that have won medals at the WBC — Japan, the Dominican Republic, South Korea, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela — it’s hard to believe they have more talented baseball players than the U.S. The Dominican Republic is one of the poorest countries in the Caribbean, Cuba is under communist rule, and Venezuela can’t even keep the lights on. Puerto Rico, although part of the United States, nevertheless has a population 100 times smaller and a per capita income less than half that of the mainland.

Even though Japan and South Korea roughly compare with the United States in standard of living, those countries have produced far fewer major league players. For example, one of the rare players who was successful in both the Japanese and American leagues, Ichiro Suzuki, had his Japanese single season hit record broken by former Chicago Cub Matt Murton, who currently cannot make a major league roster.

The most obvious explanation for the U.S. team’s lack of success would be if our best players simply didn’t participate in the WBC. Although some of the best players don’t participate, this year’s team is comprised of multiple MLB All-Stars and Gold Glove winners. This has been true throughout the history of the U.S. team. For example, the inaugural 2006 team had future Hall of Famers Chipper Jones, Derek Jeter, and Ken Griffey Jr. along with various other all-stars.

So, given all the natural advantages the U.S. has, what’s the explanation for their lack of hardware?

Simply put, the other countries competing care a lot more about baseball than the U.S. The vast majority of the athletes and athletic dollars of those countries are focused on baseball, while the U.S. invests in football, basektball, and plenty of other sports in which other nations are unable to compete.

This explains why Curacao — a small, baseball-obsessed island 40 miles north of Venezuela with a population just north of 150,000 — has produced 3 major league All-Star-caliber players for the Netherlands, who made it to the semi-finals before being bounced out by Puerto Rico in an 11-inning battle.

In economics, this phenomenon is known as “specialization.” Essentially, when a person or nation focuses on producing something, in this case baseball players, they can outperform a person or nation which might have more talent or resources overall. While these smaller nations might produce world-class baseball players, don’t expect them to have the next LeBron James.

If the U.S. is unable to capture their first medal in the WBC this week, don’t blame a lack of talent on the American team. If the U.S. were as obsessed with the WBC as they were with March Madness, we’d probably have a medal by now.

Eric Peterson (@IllinoisEric89) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a policy analyst at Americans for Prosperity.

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