Updated Men’s Baseball World Rankings after the 2023 WBC

This Tuesday, after a brief hiatus in the wake of the recently played final of the World Baseball Classic tournament, WBSC informed about the newest top ranking in their men’s competitions. The rankings reflect a four-year cycle and a data set of more than 1,000 international contests.

A listing in position ranking of its Member Associations was first published in January 2009, providing a ground for comparison of the relative quality of the teams.

Starting in 2015, the rankings also decide which 12 teams partake in the WBSC Premier12 tournament.

The rankings

After Japan claimed their third World Baseball Classic (WBC) title after defeating the United States in an intense low-scoring final that ended 3-2 at the LoanDepot Park in Miami, it was easy to guess that they would top the rankings (again) on this year’s list. Team Japan collected 5,323 points, with a 921 points difference in front of the United States (4,402 points) and 1193 points from Mexico (4,130 points).

The Aztecas left the competition as one of the tournament’s surprises, shooting way above their weight class. Still, they had narrowly failed to beat Japan in their first historic World Baseball Classic semi-final but left the field with their heads up, proud of their performance.

Also, Chinese Taipei collected an exceptional quantity of ranking points, so they are placed in the 4th spot with 4,061 points, 155 points more than the 5th-rated South Korea with 4,049 points.

The WBSC rated 84 men’s baseball programs, an increase of three since the start of the year, with Afghanistan, Laos, Palestine, and Thailand joining, while American Samoa dropped out. Costa Rica and Bangladesh, in 61st place, are the biggest movers, up 15 and 13 spots, respectively.