MIA to WBC
While the stars are away, the broadcasters will stray.
Spring training is thrown into a tizzy this year by the World Baseball Classic and Big League rosters who lose stars as a consequence. This is a chance for those who would not previously have had three at-bats or more than a single inning on the mound to get a look, or a longer look.
The wholesale defensive changes in later spring innings are made more frequently and further vex announcers. Play in spring 2026 features players less likely to make the big club and head to MLB for the regular season. This does have value to teams and players, but mostly it means the stakes are lower and the players used much more frequently and meaningfully than their prospects of making the Bigs would seem to merit.
The chatter from play-by- play announcers wanders in direct proportion to the likelihood of a team’s most important assets being out of the lineup. Spring training still doesn’t count. Only now it doesn’t count and you can’t even pretend it portends anything about the coming season.
In theory, it is more intriguing. In practice, the plot has been lost.
It is well established there is no need to pay attention to how the pitch-call challenges are being used in February and March. The previous big story of the spring has taken a back bench. The new rule and procedure for challenging balls and strikes is not going to be done as it has been in the first half of Grapefruit and Cactus League play. When WBC players get back to spring games, this thread will be picked up again.
For now, it is further understood any insight into the starting day roster is on hold until the players taking part in the World Baseball Classic are back in the fold.
So talk meanders.
On Monday, Rob Bradford and Will Flemming held forth from JetBlue Park in Fort Myers about the WBC on WEEI while checking in on the Red Sox contest against the Phillies. Garrett Crochet started on the mound for the Red Sox, a performance of some interest to Boston fans.
Kiké Hernández, formerly and latterly of the Red Sox and the Dodgers, among others, went on about the Series v. the Classic.
"Yadi can attest to that. The Classic kind of feels above the World Series. Maybe it's because of what we have on the chest, and it's not the name of the tournament,” Kiké opined.
This provided grist for the broadcaset mill of a Red Sox lineup bereft of 15 members to 10 different international teams while the WBC is contested around the globe.
”It’s not better than the World Series, that’s insane,” Will said. “Look, he’s lived both and is entitled to his opinion.”
Bradford then opined Shohei Ohtani striking out Mike Trout to end the 2023 classic while they were both teammates on the Angels and, separately, representing Japan and the United States in the World Baseball Classic, was among the most iconic moments in recent baseball history.
Then Will had a chance to make his point while calling the game.
“It is high. It is deep. It is gone,” Will called as Nick Sogard hit a three-run home run in the third inning. “Now there’s an iconic moment in Grapefruit League history.”
Alligator mississippiensis
More than a million of the reptiles make a home in Florida, including two outside JetBlue Park.
Discussion tangential to the action continued on Tuesday as the Red Sox played the Tigers, again in JetBlue Park.
Talk turned to alligators. The American alligator is perhaps the greatest conservation story in modern history. Declared endangered in 1967, they now thrive in Florida and elsewhere. There are 1.3 million alligators in the Sunshine State.
Two were in a ditch outside the stadium. Rob spied them with his spotter binoculars. The Red Sox booth returned to the subject of the WBC, but this time as a subject of increasing the popularity of baseball. There are, Rob offered, other efforts at work as well.
“I want to wax poetic a little bit about growing the game,” Rob said, waxing poetic. “Another part of this is what you do. People are going to grow up and say, ‘Hey, I remember that call Will Flemming did. Just like I remember listening to Joe Castiglione while I stared up at the ceiling in that cottage in Freeport, Maine.”
Or in a state-government office in Tallahassee on a weekday afternoon.