PHOENIX — Jeff McNeil considered the last time he had faced a pitcher without having consulted a scouting report ahead of time.
In some ways, that makes the World Baseball Classic an anomaly. As Team USA faced off against Great Britain, Mexico, Canada and Colombia this week in Phoenix, big-league batters found themselves standing in against pitchers without a single pro inning under their belts.Which is why the national teams assembled makeshift"front office" staffs to give their players some comfort and cover and perhaps even a competitive advantage.
For the teams that boast rosters full of established MLB stars, there is plenty of information to work with. In that sense, Israel got lucky facing the many formidable All-Stars on D.R., Puerto Rico and Venezuela . But when it came to Nicaragua, the advance work was a little trickier. “Great Britain, I think some of the starters have never even pitched in pro ball,” said Cory Swope, who is working for Team Mexico during the tournament. “Those guys have been a little bit more challenging, and we kind of go old-school and rely a little bit more on instincts in that sense.”
That is, with some slight limitations. Both he and Rosenbaum specified that they kept some proprietary insights from their primary organizations private.Somewhere between mining the data and relying on instinct is trying to learn about the teams they’re facing as the WBC is unfolding. “Definitely a little bit of scouting from three days ago," Swope said.
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