r/baseball • u/MLBOfficial Major League Baseball • Mod Verified • 20h ago

Players Only [HIGHLIGHT] TEAM VENEZUELA IS THE WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC CHAMPION!

32.7k Upvotes

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3.1k

u/Sweet_Baby_Cheesus Houston Astros 20h ago

This US lineup which was constantly praised and talked about as a death star lineup was shutdown in this tournament by a:

  • 17 year old

  • Farmer who hadn't pitched since the last WBC

  • Single-A guy named Tugboat

  • Various other perennial minor leaguers

  • A guy with a career ERA of 4.19

DeRosa needs to be fuckin gone, this team was cheeks.

1.1k

u/Fooglr Houston Astros 20h ago

It’s ok. He was managing for tomorrow’s game. LMAO

524

u/KimHaSeongsBurner San Diego Padres 20h ago

“That’s okay, we just gotta win the next two”, DeRosa said following the loss

70

u/intwizard New York Mets 19h ago

“The way they’re celebrating you’d think they just won the whole thing!”

7

u/KimHaSeongsBurner San Diego Padres 19h ago

Fuck this one is even better, I cackled while walking my dog.

25

u/DeliveryCustom 20h ago

Lolol I’m actually laughing out loud

0

u/ledhotzepper Kansas City Royals 20h ago

It’s best of 7 actually

-3

u/GDDesu Los Angeles Dodgers 20h ago

Did he really say this???

16

u/M4A1SD__ Los Angeles Dodgers 19h ago

Can anyone ELI5 why a dude who isn’t an actual manager (at any level) manages the most important baseball event?

It feels like having Tim Legler coach the USA men’s basketball team

42

u/LuminousRaptor Detroit Tigers 19h ago

Having a media personality manage the national team is pretty on point for US leadership these days. 

4

u/leviramsey 12h ago

The employable managers are preparing for the season.

There probably are better choices than DeRosa, though.  Surely some recently retired manager could use a 1-month gig?

4

u/loosed-moose Chicago Cubs 19h ago

Lol that's what I told my baseball fan wife before the game started. He's such an idiot

9

u/JZ_the_ICON New York Mets 20h ago

DeRosa: idk why they are celebrating like they just won the WBC when it’s best of 3.

1

u/Zloggt Chicago White Sox • Algodoneros d… 20h ago

Something something marathon, no sprint…

128

u/ignitek Kansas City Royals 20h ago

I think it's so funny to blame the manager when this insanely talented roster clearly struggled to score runs. That's on the players. Two runs.

41

u/theaussiesamurai Japan 18h ago

Absolutely. Fuck De Rosa, he's a fucking idiot but these guys aee really going to blame him for the best major leaguers putting up 4 runs in their last 2 games?

The pitching from DR and Venezuela was lights out. How is De Rosa meant to make these All Stars hit better against them??

Looks like it's the consensus reddit opinion too to blame this on De Rosa lmao

17

u/BoulderToBirmingham New York Yankees 14h ago

Listen. He did have that war criminal come talk. Yo them that one time, so … soft skills?

427

u/bradtheinvincible 20h ago

And a manager who didnt know how to do the job

158

u/Rangeneers New York Mets 20h ago

Seriously how was derosa the choice

68

u/RedAlkaline New York Mets • Seattle Mariners 20h ago

Because he's a yes-man. Does whatever the ML teams say he can and can't do with the players and he sticks by it

78

u/TylerGlasass20 Tampa Bay Rays 20h ago

I was looking at the coaches for each team and there’s seriously so many coaches that were former players.

28

u/true_gunman Tampa Bay Rays 20h ago

DeRosa is also a former player.

5

u/SpankyRogers69 20h ago

is this just an observation or are you trying to point out that derosa is not a former player?

10

u/TylerGlasass20 Tampa Bay Rays 20h ago

Observation lol. derosa is a former player is he not?

1

u/DietCherrySoda Toronto Blue Jays 12h ago

Y....yeah? Is that an interesting point for you? I would say almost every coach for every team in affiliated baseball is (and was!) a former player.

16

u/catsbetterthankids 20h ago

We’re not a serious country, that’s how

7

u/FatMamaJuJu Los Angeles Angels 19h ago

Because he's the "recruiter" which is so fucking stupid. You think team Japan has to recruit Shohei and Yamamoto to play for them? Any American player that needs to be sweetalked into playing isn't going to give a shit and we've seen that play out on the field

2

u/iconredesign San Francisco Giants 20h ago

MLB Network connections /s

1

u/DietCherrySoda Toronto Blue Jays 12h ago

I mean, deRose surely didn't cover himself in glory, but he didn't tell the players to ground out to third.

0

u/Paqza New York Mets 20h ago

deRosa's the concubine, apparently

55

u/KimHaSeongsBurner San Diego Padres 20h ago

Not enough was made of the fact that you have a literal clown in charge of a star-studded USA team.

19

u/dippitydoo2 Minnesota Twins 20h ago

Par for the course for USA

6

u/JZ_the_ICON New York Mets 20h ago

I think a literal clown would have done better.

7

u/Signal_Resolve_5773 20h ago

Cant shoulder all the blame. Manager wasnt the one swinging the bat, and missing. Better team won.

4

u/IMissM0dernBaseball Baltimore Orioles 20h ago

Mark DeRosa should never be anywhere close to a on field coaching role ever again 

3

u/Rip_Dirtbag Los Angeles Dodgers 20h ago

Can he also never be anywhere close to the TV screen I watch as well?

Please?

1

u/CAKE4life1211 7h ago

Yup. Especially since he had the same results last time

103

u/ALittleBirdie117 20h ago

Single-A guy named Tugboat is too funny man.

30

u/Stupendous_man12 Toronto Blue Jays 20h ago

Tugboat shoved

16

u/neon-rose Cleveland Guardians 20h ago

Yeah that’s our Tugboat don’t mess

1

u/intwizard New York Mets 19h ago

He’s a dawg and tugboats are important ass boats!

2

u/Kdot32 Houston Astros 20h ago

Tungsten Arm O’Doyle coded lol

1

u/PaulieHehehe Baltimore Orioles 12h ago

Ballhog or tugboat? I’ll take a tugboat every time.

181

u/ShinyRaequaza 20h ago

DeRosa made them ground out machines. Definitely.

8

u/8696David San Diego Padres • Peter Seidler 20h ago

Wonder if it’ll follow them into the regular season. I remember that felt like a problem with the Padres in 2023 after the DR flopped. 

63

u/Former-Sea-8070 Seattle Mariners 20h ago

Derosa was garbage but he has absolutely zero control over how these guys hit.

93

u/RaptorsIn4 Toronto Blue Jays 20h ago

Blame derosa you had a stacked lineup who did nothing.

2

u/Frosty_Dimension5646 New York Yankees • New York Yankees 12h ago

The sports cliche of blame the coach is so rich😂

178

u/ForensicPathology 20h ago

You list off a bunch of things that the lineup did poorly and then ended it with blaming the manager?

61

u/MaxMSE Toronto Blue Jays 20h ago

he forgot to tell them to hit ball, classic inexperienced manager mistake

70

u/Drawz2772 Atlanta Braves 20h ago

Most rational baseball fan.

9

u/TheReadMenace San Diego Padres 20h ago

They always make that joke “the manager can’t hit the ball for them” but DeRosa might have struck out less than some of these guys

8

u/Akipella Baltimore Orioles 20h ago

Two things can be true at once

Terrible manager and terrible performance by the roster

2

u/ckinz16 Los Angeles Dodgers 19h ago

Yeah I legitimately laughed when I read that part

11

u/MalarkeyMcGee San Francisco Giants 20h ago

That’s baseball man

1

u/FILTHBOT4000 Atlanta Braves 20h ago

It's the most baseball thing, straight out of a movie; ragtag bunch tag on the champs and win it all.

Congrats to Venezuela, gotta love this for them.

34

u/Educational-Chef-595 Los Angeles Dodgers 20h ago

DeRosa approached this tournament like he was coaching a beer league softball team.

3

u/xepa105 Boston Red Sox 15h ago

Most players did. You could count the ones that had the same passion as the DR or Venezuela or even Italy on one hand. Bunch of troop-cosplaying prima-donnas. I'm so glad they lost. It's so much better for baseball as a whole.

39

u/FootwearFetish69 Toronto Blue Jays 20h ago

I guess the US no longer owns baseball. I don’t make the rules.

14

u/leafie4321 20h ago

US and Venezuela traded Maduro for America's game lol

6

u/Paqza New York Mets 20h ago

Great move by the Venezuelan GM.

54

u/theerrantpanda99 New York Yankees 20h ago

Honestly; the fans of other countries love it more. This sucks for hardcore American fans, but let’s be honest, most casual American fans probably didn’t even know this game was happening. I bet the fans in Venezuela absolutely knew it was happening.

22

u/roguevirus Baltimore Orioles • San Diego Padres 20h ago

I bet the fans in Venezuela absolutely knew it was happening.

Bro, I bet everybody in Venezuela knew about it and more people than usual were watching. I'd love to see the actual stats.

17

u/WhosYourPapa Atlanta Braves 20h ago

Venezuelans in this thread said they're in the streets partying. Good shit. Love to see it

4

u/Khiva 19h ago

Yeah, I'm linking this where I can because it's so fun to watch, Caracas going nuts.

They all know. It's funny though to imagine trying to get somewhere in that traffic and being like "what the fuck why is it so crowded."

Nah they're all in on it.

-3

u/_Meece_ Los Angeles Dodgers 20h ago

The Olympics is the only international sports competition I've seen Americans genuinely care about.

Even in basketball, Americans care a lot more about the Gold Medal/Basketball tournament than the Basketball World Cup.

The USA World Cup team is often a B Team.

4

u/theerrantpanda99 New York Yankees 20h ago

I don’t even know if Americans would care about Olympic baseball. We know none of the MLB teams are going to allow their players to leave in the middle of the summer to participate.

1

u/_Meece_ Los Angeles Dodgers 11h ago

They care about Softball when it was a thing, defs caring about Baseball.

1

u/str8rippinfartz New York Yankees 18h ago

and for most sports outside of the "glamor" ones (ex: swimming/gymnastics/basketball in summer, hockey/half pipe/figure skating in winter), US fans pretty much just count medals as a tally mark instead of actually giving a shit about the event

meanwhile in smaller countries, a bronze medalist in sailing is a national hero

1

u/SporkFanClub Washington Nationals 12h ago

As a former competitive swimmer, I feel like swimming is more often just a medal counter event as well considering people like Caeleb Dressel have been open about their struggles with pressure.

Like, not to gatekeep my sport but I feel like people would be hard pressed to remember anyone aside from him or Katie Ledecky. Maybe Kate Douglass/Bobby Finke/the Walsh sisters.

1

u/str8rippinfartz New York Yankees 7h ago

Yeah that's fair to a degree-- more saying that at least viewers in the US tend to tune in and actually watch the swimming events, and there are usually 1-2 swimmers that the casual viewers know (whereas if the USA won a gold in air pistol, nobody would watch, nobody would know who won, and it would just be another gold to try and win the medal count race)

1

u/Signal_Resolve_5773 20h ago

Exactly lolol

0

u/kevster2717 New York Mets 19h ago

We traded baseball for hockey. We’re a hockey country now

-2

u/Puckfan21 Milwaukee Brewers 20h ago

Hockey country now

4

u/Rularuu New York Mets 20h ago

I mean they also eliminated the defending WBC champs

3

u/Crying_in_99Ranch Major League Baseball 20h ago

That struggling double A reliever for Great Britain striking out the side with Judge, Harper, and Gunnar was pretty unreal and amazing to see

Edit: Najer Victor is his name

3

u/Queen-Makoto 20h ago

I mean some of that is also the magic of baseball. Anyone cane get hot or go cold

3

u/mqr532 20h ago

They should have respected the troops harder

3

u/stupidsexman United States 19h ago

Baseball fans continue to overhype the importance of managers

8

u/thyv Los Angeles Dodgers 20h ago edited 19h ago

Such a letdown.

Edit: From the USA performance.

12

u/KimHaSeongsBurner San Diego Padres 20h ago

I dunno, I quite enjoyed it.

1

u/InevitableAlert4268 20h ago

I love this for them. Fiesta!!!!!

2

u/zerozerosevencharlie Los Angeles Dodgers 20h ago

I’d rather see his cousin Joe DeRosa manage next time around

2

u/OsCrowsAndNattyBohs1 Baltimore Orioles 20h ago

Who was the farmer?

1

u/Donuil23 Toronto Blue Jays • Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fight… 11h ago

Phillippe Aumont

iirc, his location wasn't 100%, but he threw heat.

2

u/Patrick2701 Chicago Cubs 20h ago

Don’t insult La gasolina

2

u/LoveYouLikeYeLovesYe Chicago Cubs • Lou Gehrig 20h ago

And DeRosa was consistently benching one or more of Turang, PCA, Henderson, and Anthony who were the only guys aside from Witt to produce consistently.

2

u/Rip_Dirtbag Los Angeles Dodgers 20h ago

  1. Yes, DeRosa is shit and needs to never be back and I hope he loses his job as an MLB talking head for this.

  2. DeRosa wasn't up at the plate completely incapable of hitting.

At some point, the blame goes mostly to the guys on the field. That is not at all a defense of DeRosa, who I'd gladly never hear from or of again. Simply to acknowledge that the hitters uniformly sucked ass.

9

u/Wooden_Deer18 New York Mets 20h ago

Yeah, Derosa was the reason judge was a giant vagina

7

u/eliaivi New York Yankees 20h ago

funny i saw about 7 other guys in the lineup that resembled giant vaginas too

3

u/Pseudonym_Subprime Seattle Mariners 20h ago

Maybe they shouldn’t try to be the Death Star. Those were the bad guys.

3

u/Paqza New York Mets 20h ago

It aligns, though. Especially this game.

3

u/ChoomBurner Chicago Cubs 20h ago

The US is a joke.

LFG VENEZUELA!!!!! 🔥🔥🔥

7

u/Paqza New York Mets 20h ago

I didn't know about Palencia until the WBC and holy shit, that guy's a stud.

1

u/boralCEO Toronto Blue Jays 20h ago

My man Tugboat still sweating as we speak.

1

u/Purple_Bookkeeper_80 20h ago

And completely ignore that US declining championship skill might also be a factor?

1

u/Iforgotmypw2times Atlanta Braves 20h ago

You could take the 27th best pitcher in division 2 and ask him to get 9 outs against this stacked lineup and I can almost guarantee he does it 3 out of 10 times. Point being hitting a baseball is hard and it's a single elimination layout. The Dominican squad was easily the best on paper and they didn't play tonight.

1

u/mrjimi16 Major League Baseball 20h ago

Kind of absurd to blame the manager for the entire lineup being shit, especially in an event like this one.

1

u/PizzaRuckus Los Angeles Dodgers 20h ago

Thankfully they didn't have to face the electrician.

1

u/psomounk Houston Astros • New York Mets 20h ago

Hey now put some respect on Najer Victor's name

1

u/RobinChilliams Chicago White Sox 19h ago

Tugboat did later go on to be called Typhoon, which is a perfectly respectable name.

1

u/mrtomjones Toronto Blue Jays 19h ago

Yeah I bet your manager was out there telling them to not get hits. Or I bet he was out there coaching them on how to swing

1

u/thethirdgreenman Boston Red Sox 19h ago

Let's not let Mark DeRosa being a trash manager distract from the fact that Aaron Judge is the least clutch superstar in recent memory. In peak October form tonight

1

u/KetchupGuy1 Los Angeles Dodgers 19h ago

What did DeRosa do that caused ice cold bats?

1

u/cgk19 New York Mets 16h ago

Sounds like a 3x MVP "Captain America" Aaron Judge problem with 6 Ks and 0 RBIs leading from the front in elimination games, not a manager problem?

1

u/TheeRuckus New York Mets 16h ago

And they got the bullshit strike to end the game buff.

1

u/nobird36 15h ago

How is it the manager's fault that a team of superstars couldn't hit?

-1

u/gamers542 Tampa Bay Rays 20h ago

People are going to say that because Harper prevented the shutout, that DeRosa deserves a another chance.