Fantasy Baseball Fans—Beware of the WBC players in your drafts.

Fryingpan Sports

Fantasy Baseball Fans—Beware of the WBC players in your drafts.

BB

By Bill Smith

Note to readers: Niblets will return next Saturday.

There are two reasons that you should shy away from drafting WBC participants. We have seen the list of injuries that key players have sustained. As bad as those injuries are, they may represent just the sales tax on the costs to teams that allowed their players to participate.

First, there is a much higher chance of injury than a given player would have had he not played in the WBC. The level of competition was way too high way too soon. They did not have the usual slow process of most springs working into game shape. That lack of warm up time and intensity of competition against national teams that were ready for the games will show up in mid season injuries.

Be particularly careful drafting pitchers that were in the WBC. The usual spring pitch count limit in the first 2 or 3 appearances for starters is 30-50. Some WBC starters went 100 to 120 pitches in game conditions not in the laid back or laid out games of spring training. That is a prescription for injury later in the season.

The second risk is reduced production. Success in the WBC should not be used as an indication of a great season or even an average year. In most cases the pitching of WBC teams is far below MLB regular season levels. The hitters are also not facing MLB quality pitching either. WBC stats should be ignored. They are less reliable than spring training stats which are useless in projecting regular season performance.

So, for players in the WBC, it is Buyer Beware! The team you save will be your own along with a good measure of sanity.

That’s what I think. Tell me what you think.

Bill Smith is a former coach of several semi-pro teams, has officiated both football and basketball, done color on radio for college football and basketball and has scouted talent. He is a senior writer for and edits https://fryingpansports.com. He has also published several novels on and edits .

My email is [email protected].

Technorati Tags: wbc,World Baseball Classic,Fantasy Baseball,Major League Baseball,MLB,injuries,pitchers,pitch count,spring training
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4 thoughts on “Fantasy Baseball Fans—Beware of the WBC players in your drafts.”

  1. Obviously, for a game like baseball you need to be tough enough to fight and enjoy all the adversities that the game has to offer!! Houston Astros tickets

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  2. That’s a good call – these guys are going to be fatigued. Roy Oswalt looks shaky and he had a really rough start to the season last year. I don’t think this will help his case for later in the year – i.e. August, September.

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  3. Great advice, WBC isn’t at ALL on part with MLB. I was actually having this discussion with a friend of mine last night as we were scoping out each others lineups (different leagues of course). He hadn’t even thought of that so I had to fill him in, I think he owes me a beer or two.

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    • if you got him better players he owes you for sure.

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