1) Correlation does not imply causation. Just because Wells had a great season on the heels of the 2006 Classic does not mean that the Classic caused it. Same with Lidge and Reitsma. I only used Wells because I knew that he felt that the cause of his very good 2006 season was the prep work he did leading into the Classic and the tournament itself.Originally Posted by metsguy234
2) Go back and re-read my quote. I never said these were extremely meaningful (unless you ignore what people put in brackets in which case you're gonna be really effed up by this statement) games. What I said was (if you include the brackets) that these games may not be meaningful to you and Jaker, but they are extremely meaningful to the players that are participating, unless I'm a complete dipsh*t when it comes to reading the unanimously enthusiastic body language from the players involved in this tournament. This tournament is also partly about spreading the game to get more people playing in more countries, which potentially deepens the talent pool that MLB can draw on, which is good for fans like you and me.
3) Even if Oliver Perez gets hurt, it won't be because he threw 85 pitches. What's probably more dangerous is putting a pitcher on a team and not using him. Venezuela did that with Gustavo Chacin in 2006 and he ain't been the same since. Obviously, Chacin doesn't have as much talent as Perez, but the reason he stumbled in the first place was that the Venezuelans iced him for that tournament. Perhaps he was mishandled by the Jays when he returned to ST that year, who knows. As with Wells, Lidge, and Reitsma unless you have access to some kind of alternate universe machine you can't definitively say that the Classic benefited or hindered them. All you can determine is whether or not the player enjoyed the experience and for that answer you'll have to ask them yourself or read their quotes on various and sundry sites. In the end the player's enjoyment is all that matters because it's their life/career and this type of experience doesn't come around that often.
By the way I thought your favourite 3B DWright summed it up well when he said: "You can pull an oblique here, you can pull an oblique in Fort Myers or Port St. Lucie. It doesn't matter where." Then he talks about the need to go full out whether you're in ST or at the Classic because when you get worried about injuries and decide to go 75% you're probably more likely to get hurt. Youkilis mentions that ST results in possibly more injuries than the Classic has and he guestimates that 30 or so players in each team's camp sit for a couple of days with various tweaks and strains.
Do Football (soccer) clubs in Europe tell their players they can't represent their country in the World Cup or Euro tournaments? Only if they want to be drawn and quartered by the fans of said countries. But, the World Cup and Euro have more tradition than the World Baseball Classic. No sh*t Sherlock. What is required to build tradition? Time, so let's give it time and allow it to grow and prosper or whither and die of its own merit. Let us not be nervous nellies worrying about this player and that player on the teams we root for in MLB. This has the potential to do great things for the game and I'm sorry to inform you of this but the game itself is way bigger than any one club in MLB or even all of MLB injuries or no injuries.
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