DUNEDIN, Fla. – The first nine seconds of the round-robin Canada-United States clash at 4 Nations Face-Off still had hockey fans in the Toronto Blue Jays clubhouse abuzz ahead of Thursday’s winner-takes-all rematch.
“Wild,” marvelled starter Chris Bassitt. “It was awesome.”
“That was better than the Super Bowl,” said infielder Ernie Clement.
“I loved it,” added outfielder George Springer. “I don't really think anyone thought that was coming. It means a lot to them and I have ultimate respect for that.”
The trio agrees that the tournament demonstrates the allure of international best-on-best competition and believes a mid-season baseball equivalent to the 4 Nations – one without the restrictions and concerns inherent to the World Baseball Classic – would be just as riveting. As Clement put it, “watching that game, how could you not get excited about other sports trying something like that?”
Despite its structural flaws, the last WBC did produce its own dream moment, when Shohei Ohtani struck out then-Angels teammate Mike Trout to clinch Japan’s 3-2 win over the United States in the final. An encounter “that was phenomenal,” said Springer.
Imagine, then, how good even a limited event in place of the All-Star game – featuring only a small handful of baseball's powerhouse countries, alternating every two years during the gap between Classics – could be with players fully built up.
It's a tantalizing concept, but given the structure of the baseball calendar, taking a week out of the schedule in mid-July may simply be too problematic.
“Interrupting the season mid-season, I don't see the path for that,” said Max Scherzer, a former member of the player union’s influential executive subcommittee. “I can see the World Baseball Classic taking on more significance, more runway here. For me, I've talked and shared thoughts that hey, if you push that World Baseball Classic to the last week of spring training and then eat into the first week of the season, actually reducing the schedule down to 154, you push back where the two weeks are.
“It would allow the pitchers to ramp up and be ready to step into that type of atmosphere,” he continued, “and the fans love seeing international competition like that and watching us play for our countries. So there are ways to lean into this that expands upon (the World Baseball Classic) and at the same time protects the pitchers.”
A running theme through the five editions of the Classic staged thus far – with a sixth due next year – is how problematic the event’s spring timing is, especially for pitchers, but also for players on new teams or those competing for roster spots.
Scherzer, for instance, was supposed to play for the United States in 2017 but withdrew due to the rehab process for a stress fracture in the knuckle of his right ring finger.
That decision “absolutely killed me,” he said. “Your arm isn't ready just to walk into that.”
“It wasn't just my opinion,” he added. “It was the opinion of pitching coaches and players who have been a part of it that advised me, 'don't do it.' … You're walking into playoff-atmosphere-type pitching and no matter what you do, you're just not ready. So you really need to really focus on the ramp-up for pitchers.”
Bassitt, the Blue Jays’ player-union representative last year, also argues that the best time for the World Baseball Classic, or an amuse-bouche 4 Nations Face-Off equivalent, is at the end of spring training or when the first week of the regular season is currently.
Holding international play during that time also pushes the schedule back “when attendance is low because the weather's not good,” he added. Predicting that viewership and attendance “would be 50 times higher than what it would be for opening week."
“You couldn't do it during the All-Star break,” said Bassitt. “That's a lot of time off for guys that are not playing in it and also a lot of guys (who would play in the tournament) need rest. At an All-Star game, you throw an inning. To fully run a tournament like that and make them high-quality like they are right now with the hockey, you want (Tarik) Skubal and guys like that throwing six high-level innings that he's ready for. So, I think the only spot for it would be the very first week of the season.”
Clement, a two-time Bowman Cup selection (honouring the best high school hockey players in the Rochester and Buffalo area) who twice led his Brighton Barons in scoring, isn’t as worried about the extended downtime a mid-season tournament would require.
The current All-Star break runs four days, which is “not a short amount of time to not be playing baseball,” he said. Pushing the break to a week, 10 days even two weeks, “at that point, I don't think it really matters.”
“Those two weeks off could be the difference in a guy getting healthy,” Clement added. “The All-Star break always comes at a good time. I think guys care enough and take ownership in their careers enough to where they know what to do to stay in shape. I don't think that would really be an issue at all.”
Any extra effort is worthwhile, he added, because “the 4 Nations has shown that it can be special.”
No debate there, although Springer was careful to not underestimate the demands of playing in the World Baseball Classic, or something akin to it.
“I've never played in one, so I can't speak to the intensity of it, but I know a lot of guys who have and they say it's extremely intense,” he explained. “If you put the best in the world at their respective sport up against the best in the world from their respective countries, it's great. … Obviously, I'm a big hockey guy and this is great. The Olympics are awesome. Stuff like that in sports is awesome.”
Indeed. Which is among the reasons Bassitt believes baseball needs to find a way to work through all the issues and add more international play.
In a changing sports landscape that seems to increasingly value events outside the usual menu of a regular season and playoffs, “we can easily do it,” he said.
“It's just about structuring it right, frameworking it right and making sure all the financial numbers make sense,” said Bassitt, who played street hockey with his friends growing up in Ohio and would regularly attend Coyotes games when the team was still in Phoenix and he played for teams with Arizona-based spring training sites.
“You look at the WBC viewership and how many people watch that, I don't know who would say no. I think the players would be excited to do it. I think owners should be excited to do it. And it's probably the easiest way to grow our game worldwide, which we're always pushing for.
“Something like the 4 Nations, just a round-robin kind of thing similar to what hockey is doing, would be great for our sport.”
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