Canada’s 2028 Olympic Qualification Discussion Road to LA 2028

[Safe Dragonfly 108]

We'll be facing the US in the QFs

 

*sighs* of all possible teams....

 

Oh well, it was a fun run. But I think we all know what's gonna happen. Still fun regardless.

[Topicmaster1010 6,604]

No matter what happens against the US, I'll be very happy with how this tournament went and I'm incredibly proud of all the players. This team proved that it's the deepest Canadian roster assembled and how far Canadian baseball has come even within the last 10 years. It would've been crazy to think that Canada would be capable of beating teams like Puerto Rico and Cuba back then.

 

I'm not sure if anyone here watched the 2017 WBC but that Canadian team may have legitimately been the worst team I've ever seen. It was a complete trainwreck.

 

• You had a 39 year old Ryan Dempster (who was somewhat good in in his prime) as the #1 starting pitcher WHO HADN'T PITCHED AT ANY PROFESSIONAL LEVEL for the last 4 years. He starts Game 1 and gets absolutely shelled by the Dominican Republic. And because the pitching on the team is so bad, he is FORCED TO START 3 DAYS LATER against the US and gets shelled again
• You had a 41 year old Eric Gagne (who was pretty good in his prime although he had some help with steroids) come out of retirement. He hadn't pitched in the MLB for the last 8 years.
• Russell Martin, who is a catcher, was scheduled to be the teams starting shortstop before he withdrew
• Pete Orr, who retired in 2015 and was at that time, a coach for the Milwaukee Brewers, came out of retirement and was the teams starting 2nd baseman
• The rest of the lineup and pitching (beside Freddie Freeman), as you would expect was also a complete mess. I believe Freeman was the only active MLB player who was in the lineup. Justin Morneau is a Canadian legend but he's hitting 2nd at 35 years old, then that's not great. And Tyler O'Neill (who's on this current team) was hitting 3rd when he was just 21 years old.

 

Anyway's, all that to say is that this comparing this 2016 team to that 2017 team is night and day. We finally are able to field an all MLB starting lineup and the pitching was a pleasant surprise. They actually had the 2nd lowest earned run average of all 20 teams during pool play. The offenses in this pool are arguably weaker overall this is also without some of the best Canadian pitchers like Cade Smith, Matt Brash, Nick Pivetta, Erik Sabrowski, and Jonah Tong.

 

Hopefully, this WBC run along with the Blue Jays World Series run can help inspire a new generation of Canadian baseball players

Edited March 12 by Topicmaster1010