2023 World Baseball Classic

The 2023 World Baseball Classic (WBC) was an international professional baseball tournament and the fifth iteration of the World Baseball Classic. It began on March 8, 2023, and ran until March 21.

It was originally scheduled to take place in 2021, four years after the previous event, but was canceled in May 2020, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was later announced that qualifications for the Classic would start in September 2022, as agreed by World Baseball Classic Inc. (WBCI) The tournament expanded from 16 to 20 national teams, with all teams that participated in the 2017 edition automatically qualifying, plus four additional spots. Unlike in 2009, 2013 and 2017, the U.S. lineup attracted some distinguished players and attracted significant attention for the tournament.

Japan won their record-extending third title after defeating defending champions United States 3–2 in the championship game, becoming the second team since the Dominican Republic in the 2013 World Baseball Classic to win the WBC with an undefeated record. Shohei Ohtani was named the World Baseball Classic Most Valuable Player.

Qualification
In January 2020, the WBC announced that the 16 national teams which participated at the 2017 World Baseball Classic would automatically qualify for the 2023 tournament.

A qualifying tournament was scheduled for March 2020 in Tucson, Arizona, United States, to determine the last four teams. Twelve teams were split into two pools, and the top two teams in each pool would qualify. On March 12, 2020, Major League Baseball announced that the qualifying tournaments were being postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The qualification tournament ended up postponing to September 16–21, 2022, for the Africa/Europe qualifiers and September 30 – October 5, 2022, for the Americas/Asia/Oceania qualifiers.

The Czech Republic, Great Britain, and Nicaragua made their first appearance in the World Baseball Classic, while Panama returned after having missed out on two World Baseball Classic appearances. This was the third consecutive time that South Africa, the only African team, did not qualify for the World Baseball Classic, and the second consecutive time that both Brazil and Spain did not qualify. With Panama qualified for the World Baseball Classic for the first time since 2009, South Africa now has the longest active WBC appearance drought at 14 years, having not qualified since 2009.

Draw
The pool draw was announced by World Baseball Classic Inc. (WBCI) on July 7, 2022. Organizers prioritized placement in separate pools of the four nations which reached the semifinals of the 2017 WBC (Japan, the Netherlands, Puerto Rico, and the United States) and the three hosts (Japan, the United States, and Taiwan). Remaining pool assignments were made based on WBSC World Rankings, competitive balance, and commercial and geographic interest.

Note: Numbers in parentheses indicate positions in the WBSC World Rankings at the time of the draw.

Venues
Four stadiums were used during the main tournament.

Attendance
The first round of the tournament drew 1,010,999 fans across all four venues, nearly double the previous record for the WBC. This included 361,976 fans in Tokyo for Pool B and 295,850 fans in Miami for Pool D. Total attendance for the tournament across all rounds was 1,306,414, the highest in WBC history.

Rosters
Participating nations had to submit their final 30-man rosters no later than February 7, 2023. WBC rules required teams to carry at least 14 pitchers and two catchers on their rosters.

Officiating
On March 7, 2023, Major League Baseball and the World Baseball Softball Confederation released the list of officials for the tournament.

Umpires

 * 🇦🇺 Trent Thomas
 * 🇨🇦 Chris Graham
 * 🇨🇦 Stu Scheurwater
 * Chan-Jung Chang
 * 🇨🇴 Maikol Tibabijo
 * 🇨🇺 Ángel Hernández
 * 🇩🇴 Ramon De Jesus
 * 🇩🇴 Felix Tejeda
 * 🇫🇷 Serge Makouchetchev
 * 🇩🇪 Tim Meyer
 * 🇮🇹 Fabrizio Fabrizi
 * 🇯🇵 Shōji Arisumi
 * 🇳🇱 Edwin Louisa
 * 🇳🇮 Jairo Mendoza
 * 🇵🇦 Alejandro Pecero
 * 🇵🇷 Delfin Colon
 * 🇵🇷 Roberto Ortiz
 * 🇪🇸 Cuti Suárez
 * 🇰🇷 Ki Taik Park
 * 🇺🇸 Lance Barksdale
 * 🇺🇸 Dan Bellino
 * 🇺🇸 Cory Blaser
 * 🇺🇸 Mark Carlson
 * 🇺🇸 Laz Díaz
 * 🇺🇸 Doug Eddings
 * 🇺🇸 Mike Estabrook
 * 🇺🇸 Andy Fletcher
 * 🇺🇸 Chris Guccione
 * 🇺🇸 Adam Hamari
 * 🇺🇸 Pat Hoberg
 * 🇺🇸 Dan Iassogna
 * 🇺🇸 Ron Kulpa
 * 🇺🇸 Nic Lentz
 * 🇺🇸 Will Little
 * 🇺🇸 Ben May
 * 🇺🇸 Bill Miller
 * 🇺🇸 Alan Porter
 * 🇺🇸 Chris Segal
 * 🇺🇸 John Tumpane
 * 🇺🇸 Quinn Wolcott
 * 🇻🇪 Jhonatan Biarreta
 * 🇻🇪 Carlos Torres

Incorrectly listed as Ki Talk Park

Supervisors

 * 🇺🇸 Mike Everitt
 * 🇺🇸 Cris Jones
 * 🇺🇸 Jeff Kellogg
 * 🇺🇸 Larry Young

Prize money
The prize money allocation was released by Major League Baseball and the World Baseball Softball Confederation on March 7, 2023. Teams collect each stage they qualify in – the champions can collect a maximum of $3 million if they are a pool winner.

Group stage
Scheduled locations and dates are as follows:

Pool A
Pool A was contested in Taichung during March 8–12, 2023.

Pool B
Pool B was contested in Tokyo during March 9–13, 2023.

Pool C
Pool C was contested in Phoenix during March 11–15, 2023.

Pool D
Pool D was contested in Miami during March 11–15, 2023.

Knockout stage
The top two teams from each pool advanced to the single elimination bracket. These games were contested from March 15–21, 2023. Tokyo hosted two of the quarterfinals, while the other two quarterfinals, the semifinals, and the championship game took place in Miami.

Group stage

 * Pool A – Yu Chang
 * Pool B – Shohei Ohtani
 * Pool C – Randy Arozarena
 * Pool D – Salvador Pérez

Knockout stage

 * Tournament – Shohei Ohtani

2023 All-World Baseball Classic team
Source:

Batting
* Minimum 2.7 plate appearances per team game

Bold indicates all-time best in a single tournament of the World Baseball Classic

Pitching
* Minimum 0.8 innings pitched per team game

Television ratings
The Japan 13-4 South Korea group game drew a household viewership of 44.4% in Japan  and 11.7% in South Korea. In other words, there is an averaged 29.868 million Japanese viewers (28.9% individual viewership   ) and 2.709 million Korean viewers of the broadcast; among which, 62.343 million Japanese watched at least one minute of the game. The Korean rating in that game is the second most watched WBC game in Korea, after the 2009 Japan-South Korea final.

The Japan v. Italy game broke Japanese viewership record in WBC history. It drew an average 48.0% household viewership in Japan, i.e. averaged 38.164 million viewers.

In the United States, the World Baseball Classic was carried by Fox Sports for the first time, with games split between six Fox networks. The championship game drew 5.2 million average viewers in the US, peaking at 6.5 million viewers in the final 15 minutes, a new record for a WBC game. In Puerto Rico, the Pool D game between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic was viewed by 62% of households.