World baseball ranking: Netherlands drops a spot, Italy drops out of top 12
Today, a month and a half after the previous one, the WBSC announced the new baseball world ranking in a press release. The most surprising part was the move Mexico made. The Central Americans moved into the fifth place, their highest ranking ever.
Another surprise is the fact that the United States has passed Japan for first place. For the first time in years, Japan isn’t ranked first.
The Kingdom of the Netherlands dropped one spot from spot eight. The Dutch were overtaken by Canada, that moved up three spots from the tenth. After gaining a spot thanks to good results in the WBC, and several U- tournaments in Europe, the Netherlands is paying for the fact that European youth tournaments have been ignored and national youth teams have been neglected. The points earned in 2014, in which the Kingdom of the Netherlands won the European Championship, have expired.
The other European top country, Italy, has dropped out of the top twelve. If the ranking remains like this, the Italians will not even be able to qualify for the 2020 Olympics through the Premier 12 tournament as only the top twelve countries can. The winner of the Premier 12 will be qualified directly for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. Italy will still have a chance to qualify through the continental qualifying tournament, which will be the 2019 European Championship.
“This is a very exciting and critical time leading up to the WBSC Premier12 2019 and Tokyo 2020 Games,” said WBSC President Riccardo Fraccari. “These next years will be among the most important for baseball/softball to continue emerging as a major global sport.”
The Dutch will have two major opportunities to earn points this year. The U15 team has qualified for the U15 World Cup in Panama (August 10-19) and the U23 team will play the U23 World Cup in Nicaragua (October 19-28) after they won the European title vs and in the Czech Republic last year.
It still is beyond my comprehension why the WBSC comes with a new ranking less than two months after the previous one that was presented on January 10.