The Korean national baseball team was not classified as a championship team in the World Baseball Classic (WBC) in 2026. It has potential, but it is evaluated as an acceptable power.
On the 24th (Korean time),메이저놀이터 the American media The Athletic predicted and classified the power of each country based on whether it was possible to challenge for the championship against 16 countries that had automatically qualified for the WBC in 2026. 16 countries were divided into a total of 7 stages, and Korea, along with Canada, belonged to the 3rd stage, which is called ‘a team that is passable, but has yet to show its potential’.
The Athletic said, “Korea, like Japan, has a very highly regarded domestic professional league. Just like Japan, the best Korean players go to the major leagues after spending several years in the KBO league.” Few players went to the league and became stars. The only major leaguers in this national team were Kim Ha-seong (San Diego) and Tommy Edman (St. Louis), who were born and raised in the United States.”
Korea aimed to advance to the semifinals in this tournament, but after the 2009 and 2013 tournaments, they tasted the humiliation of being eliminated in the first round three times in a row. The content of the game was also not good, so they suffered a near-cold game loss to Japan, which they considered rivals, and played poorly against Australia and the Czech Republic, which they considered inferior. As a result, voices of criticism and self-examination boiled over in Korea.
The media paid attention to this internal atmosphere in Korea. The Athletic said, “Korea succeeded in the first two WBC tournaments, but failed to advance to the quarterfinals in the following three tournaments.
He continued, “People who watch Korean baseball with interest find all of this a bit embarrassing. I also felt that we were far behind Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) and the major leagues in terms of player development.” Korea is still a country that is crazy about baseball. It is a team that can do more in the future.”
At the same time, Korea was ranked seventh after Japan, the United States, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Puerto Rico and Mexico. In conclusion, it is a team in the quarterfinals that seems to have a good power in 2026, but it was evaluated that it has potential as it is a country with a solid domestic league and a lot of interest in baseball.
Unlike South Korea, which is somewhat ambiguous, the evaluation of Japan was clear. The Athletic said, “Japan is the defending champion who has won the WBC 3 out of 5 times. It regularly produces major league players such as Shohei Ohtani (LA Angels) and Yu Darvish (San Diego). If the posting system between NPB and the major leagues Without this, the big leagues will be filled with far more Japanese players.”
“The Japanese national team for this tournament was mostly composed of players under the age of 30, such as Shin Sasaki Rocky (Chiba Lotte) and NPB home run king Murakami Munetaka (Yakult). The combination of skills, talent, (high) participatio