In the 2023 World Baseball Classic (WBC), there was a prospect that the Korean national baseball team led by coach Lee Kang-cheol would win the championship.
On the 7th (Korean time), 11 professional reporters from MLB.com, the official homepage of the American professional baseball Major League (MLB), predicted the winning team of the WBC. Among them, reporter Michael Clare predicted that Korea would defeat the Dominican Republic in the semifinals and advance to the final, beating Japan, which came up against the United States, to win the championship.
The reason reporter Claire singled out Korea as the winning candidate was the solid center line (center fielder, second baseman, shortstop, catcher). “(Korea) has future major league star Lee Jeong-hoo in the outfield,” he explained.
Korea achieved the feat of advancing to the semifinals and finishing runner-up in the first tournament in 2006 and the tournament in 2009, respectively, but after that, it did not show much. In both the 2013 tournament and the 2017 tournament, he was eliminated in the first round. 메이저사이트
Reporter Claire said, “If Korea and Japan fight, maybe 7 times out of 10, Japan will win.” Since I was eliminated in the round, I will play harder in this tournament and I will be able to surprise the world.”
At the same time, reporter Claire picked Korean left-handed pitcher Koo Chang-mo as the MVP of the tournament. However, Koo Chang-mo was somewhat shaken by giving up 2 runs in 0.2 innings in the final evaluation match against the Hanshin Tigers held at the Kyocera Dome in Osaka, Japan on the 7th (Korea won 7-2).
Other than reporter Claire, no one predicted Korea’s victory. However, more than half of six people, including reporter Claire, predicted that Korea would go to the semifinals at least. In particular, reporter David Benn, who mainly writes articles about the Dominican Republic, predicted that Korea would advance to the final, but would lose to the Dominican Republic.
The most likely candidates for the championship were Japan and the Dominican Republic, which received votes from four reporters side by side. The reporters who thought the United States and Venezuela would win had one each.