Does Sending Players to the WBC Screw Teams Up?
Kyle Ross-USA TODAY Sports
On Sunday afternoon, a pal of mine was straight up not having a great time watching his favourite baseball staff. The Phillies, defending NL champions and consensus favorites to return to the playoffs this 12 months, have been shedding to the Rockies. They’d already finished that when this weekend and are heading into the final week of April underneath .500. So he got here up with an attention-grabbing principle: With so many gamers leaving Phillies camp to play within the World Baseball Classic, maybe the interruption in spring coaching had a deleterious impact on the staff’s preparation and/or chemistry.
Then he requested me if I knew of anybody who’d studied the difficulty. I stated no and nearly let the matter drop proper there. Looking on the statistic...