Google
 

Saturday, March 07, 2009

Two And Done...

Well, the NT's appearances in this year's WBC were brief. What many feared could happen, happened. The NT got creamed by a superior South Korean NT and then got outplayed by the Chinese, led by Chinese-American Ray Chang.

I'm personally disappointed with the results (1 run in 2 games?!), although after following the NT's disasterous warm-up stretch run from Australia through Taiwan/Japan, I guess I should have known better. Although I still hold high hopes for a few of the youngsters on the WBC NT roster, it's obvious that the NT is not the same without the upper echelon talent unavailable/made unavailable for the tourney.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have to say that it's never been this painful to watch the NT play. I was especially disappointed with the ways we had played against China. With all that said, best wishes to which ever 2 teams that will advance to the 2nd round.

BC said...

just as I expected... its so disappointing that we cant field our best players for the WBC instead of this second string CPBL talent. I had a feeling we would lose to China with the players we sent. Anyway, Japan just absolutely destroyed the Korean team 14-2 so now its China VS Korea. If China can pull out an upset, it would be a hallmark year for China I suppose. They already beat us..meh

Maos said...

i really don't see why they didn't get more players from the cpbl. A better roster probably could have been assembled from the 'weaker' cpbl teams.

it was obvious things would go pretty horribly when the NT could barely beat the elephants and got put down by a weakened Lions roster and the bulls.

Would you say the A level minor leaguers are really superior to the cpbl pros?

Anonymous said...

Just watched 2 more games, Natherland was the true underdog story and took the game from DR, one of the favorites in this year's WBC. How did they do it? They wanted it more then anyone else. the HEART Chinese Taipei's Players are all Lacking. Ray Chang. Why was he so good? because he wanted it more then those CPBL Meat Feet. It's time for Taiwan Baseball players to put up or shut up. All those "Should have won" Business, and all of the blame game. Chinese Taipei Players needs to realize that the game is played on the field, not running their mouth. The only thing these Chinese Taipei Players and coaches are good at is making up excuses.

BC said...

"Would you say the A level minor leaguers are really superior to the cpbl pros?"

I would put CPBL talent at around AA ball IMO. NPB is around AAA and closer to MLB talent. I for one am extremely disappointed. If this how they are going to perform, than forget the WBC. Just stay at home and save us the embarrassment please

Fooman701 said...

Taiwan NT performance in WBC '09
1. Scared players
2. No leadership
3. Lack of talent
4. Bad coaching
5. No strategies
6. Lack of government support
7. No support from CPBL
8. Too many excuses

So sad for a once powerhouse baseball country.

Fooman701 said...

Taiwan baseball have been on a decline over the last 10 years. CPBL is a pro league plagued with too many problems. Problems like gambling/fixed games, old and run-down stadiums, disorganized management, bad marketing, bad government support, lack of teams, and outdated coaching. All these problems show clearly why Taiwan is getting creamed by everyone. Even by countries not know to be a baseball country. We need to look at the NPB and the KBO for reference. If we don't get these problems fixed, we will never get back to the glory days when Taiwan baseball was consider one of the best in Asia.

Nellie said...

In a way I'm glad the humiliating defeat has spurned this discussion, and hopefully the idiots who run baseball in Taiwan will wake up.

This is downright pathetic. With our aboriginal population, we have much more talent and potential than the Koreans do. Now that they've won pool A I'm even more ticked.

Wang has expressed concerns over our backwards methods and training practices and lack of updated baseball knowledge. It's nice to know he still cares.

Unknown said...

"With our aboriginal population, we have much more talent and potential than the Koreans do.."

Not sure what this means. But whatever, the problem with Taiwanese baseball is its depth. Our first-line players can probably compete against those of most other countries. We get in trouble when we have to dip into our second-tier players. Imagine this lineup:

1B Chia-Chia
2B Yung-Chi Chen
SS Ching Lung Hu
3B Tai-San/Chien-Fu Yung (moving over from SS)
OF Wei-Chu Lin, Kuo-Hui Luo, Che-Hsuan Lin
DH Ching-Feng Chen
C <==one big weak spot
SP Chien-Ming Wang, WY Chen, Wei-Lung Pan, En-Yu Lin
RP Hong-Chi Kuo, Yi-Chie Hsiao, Ching-Hui Tsao, and the reliever pitching in Japan whose name I'm drawing a blank on.

This lineup may still not be enough to even get to the second round, but it'll be competitive against just about anyone. However, remove just about anyone on this team and all of sudden there's a big drop off to the next player. THAT is the problem.

There just isn't enough support and incentive to develop players. In fact, kids that excel in sport still often times have the stigma of being seeing as a bad kid in Taiwan. There are few populations more judgmental than the Taiwanese. The Taiwanese population place undue pressure on their players to excel internationally and to bring pride to the country, yet they show next to no support during off-season/off-tournament times and in fact often look down on their athletes.