2009 World Baseball Classic


The 2009 World Baseball Classic was an international baseball competition. It began on March 5 and finished March 23.
Unlike in 2006, when the round-robin format of the first two rounds led to some eliminations being decided by run-difference tiebreakers, the first two rounds of the 2009 edition were modified double-elimination format. The modification was that the final game of each bracket was winner-take-all, even if won by the team emerging from the loser's bracket, although that game only affected seeding, as two teams always advanced from each bracket.
The biggest surprise in the first round was the Netherlands, which twice defeated the Dominican Republic in Pool D to advance. The second round saw the two Pool A teams defeat the two Pool B teams while the two Pool C teams defeated the two Pool D teams. South Korea and Japan then advanced to the final game, playing each other for the fifth time in the tournament, and Japan emerged victorious for the second straight Classic, winning the final game 5–3 in 10 innings.
For the second straight Classic, Daisuke Matsuzaka was named the Most Valuable Player of the tournament.

Format

As was the case for the 2006 tournament, the sixteen teams were split into four pools of four teams each. Whereas previously the teams played in round-robin competition in the first two rounds, this time they took part in a double-elimination format, similar to the U.S. College World Series sponsored by the NCAA. Under the new format, teams were only guaranteed to play two games. This change was made to eliminate the complicated tiebreaking procedures, which were required for one of the pools in each of the first two rounds in 2006.
After the first round, the tournament was held in the U.S. The top two teams from each of the four pools—seeded from the final game in their respective pools—went to the second round, with the teams from Pools A and B meeting at Petco Park in San Diego for Pool 1, and the teams in Pools C and D playing at Dolphin Stadium in Miami Gardens for Pool 2. Again, both pools made use of double-elimination to determine the teams qualifying for the semifinals. In another change from 2006, the four qualifying teams crossed over for the semifinals, with the winner of each pool playing against the runner-up from the other pool. The championship round process was otherwise unchanged, with each semifinal being a single elimination match, the victors meeting in the final to determine the tournament champion. All three championship round games were held at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
In the final, the team with the higher winning percentage of games in the tournament were to be the home team. If the teams competing in the final had identical winning percentages in the tournament, then World Baseball Classic, Inc. would conduct a coin flip or draw to determine the home team.

Rosters

Each participating national federation had a deadline of January 19, 2009 to submit a 45-man provisional roster. Final rosters of 28 players, which was required to include a minimum of 13 pitchers and two catchers, were submitted on February 24. If a player on the submitted roster was unable to play, usually due to injury, he could be substituted at any time before the start of the tournament. While rosters could not be changed during a round of competition, a team that advanced to a later round could change its roster for the later round.

Venues

Seven stadiums were used during the tournament:
Pool APool BPool CPool D
Tokyo, Japan Mexico City, Mexico Toronto, Canada San Juan, Puerto Rico
Tokyo DomeForo SolRogers CentreHiram Bithorn Stadium
Capacity: 42,000Capacity: 26,000Capacity: 49,539Capacity: 18,264

Pool 1Pool 2Championship
San Diego, United States Miami Gardens, United States Los Angeles, United States
Petco ParkDolphin StadiumDodger Stadium
Capacity: 42,685Capacity: 38,560Capacity: 56,000

Pools composition

The 16 teams that participated in the 2006 World Baseball Classic were all invited back for the 2009 tournament. The World Baseball Classic, Inc. changed the members of each pool as compared with the 2006 Classic, however, except for Pool A. There was no official qualifying competition.
Pool APool BPool CPool D

First round

Pool A

Pool B

Pool C

Pool D

Second round

Pool 1

Pool 2

Championship round

Semifinals

Final

Final standings

Organizer WBCI has no interest in the final standings and did not compute. So, it was calculated by IBAF for the IBAF Men's Baseball World Rankings.
In the final standings, ties were to be broken in the following order of priority:
  1. The team allowing the fewest runs per nine innings in all games;
  2. The team allowing the fewest earned runs per nine innings in all games;
  3. The team with the highest batting average in all games;

    Attendance

801,408

First round

453,374
206,180
141,854
PositionPlayer
C Iván Rodríguez
1B Tae-kyun Kim
2B José López
3B Bum-ho Lee
SS Jimmy Rollins
OF Norichika Aoki
OF Frederich Cepeda
OF Yoenis Céspedes
DH Hyun-soo Kim
P Jung-keun Bong
P Hisashi Iwakuma
P Daisuke Matsuzaka

Statistics leaders

Batting

* Minimum 2.7 plate appearances per game

Pitching

* Minimum 0.8 innings pitched per game
** González is tied with 17 others with a 0.00 ERA but he pitched the most innings with 9.2

Additional rules

As was the case for the 2006 Classic, several rules were announced for the 2009 tournament that modified the existing rules for international baseball set out by the IBAF.
Once again there were limits on the number of pitches thrown in a game, though the limits themselves were changed from the previous tournament:
If a pitcher reached his limit during an at bat, he was allowed to finish pitching to the batter, but was removed from the game at the end of the at bat.
A 30–pitch outing needed to be followed by one day off, and a 50–pitch outing by four days off. No one would be allowed to pitch on three consecutive days. As the championship round was played over three consecutive days, a so-called "pitcher rest equalization" rule was added: a pitcher making 30 or more pitches in a semifinal was ineligible to pitch in the final. This negated an advantage the winners of the first semifinal would have had in the final.
A mercy rule came into effect when one team led by either fifteen runs after five innings, or ten runs after seven innings in the first two rounds.
Instant replay was also available to umpires during the tournament. As was introduced in Major League Baseball during the 2008 season, replays were only used to adjudicate on home run decisions, to determine whether the ball was fair or foul, over the fence or not, and the impact of fan interference.
An alternative version of the IBAF's extra inning rule was also introduced. If after 12 innings the score was still tied, each half inning thereafter would have started with runners on second and first base. The runners would have been the eighth and ninth hitters due in that inning respectively. For example, if the number five hitter was due to lead off the inning, the number three hitter would have been on second base, and the number four hitter on first base. However, this rule was never actually employed in this year's Classic, as the two extra-inning games in the tournament ended prior to a 13th inning.
All base coaches were required to wear protective helmets, in the aftermath of the death of Mike Coolbaugh and participating teams were required to announce the next day's starting pitcher. Additionally, a modified early termination rule was in effect for the first two rounds; had a team been ahead by 15 or more runs after five innings or ten or more runs after seven or eight innings, the game ended at that point.

Prize money

USD 14,000,000

By final standings

In the United States, ESPN and the MLB Network shared the rights, with ESPN broadcasting 23 of the games, including the Finals, while MLB Network showed the remaining 16. Spanish language telecasts in the U.S. were handled by ESPN Deportes telecasting all games. Internationally, it was broadcast to 167 countries by ESPN International.
In Canada, Rogers Sportsnet aired all 39 games.
In the Dominican Republic, CDN and CDN2 broadcast all games live
In Japan, J Sports broadcast all 39 games. TV Asahi and TBS broadcast all games featuring Japan. For all games featuring Japan, they gained viewing ratings of at least 20%. The final game gained ratings in the range 30-45%.

Video games

World Baseball Classic 2009 has licensed three video games, all made in Japan: Pro Yakyuu Spirits 6, Baseball Heroes 2009
and Jikkyou Pawafuru Major League 2009