Team Taiwan's road to 2020 Tokyo Olympics (baseball)

Recreation Sports
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Previous Olympic baseball tournaments, such as Athens 2004, and Beijing 2008, had 8 teams in the pool. This time around, there will only be only 6 teams. As the host nation, Japan is already guaranteed a spot, though they’d probably make it even if they have to play to get in.

Other countries have to play for the last 5 spots in a convoluted series of tournaments.

So Europe and the Americas each have a tournament to qualify for the Olympics. There are 2 spots at the Premier12, one for the highest placed team from the Americas, and one for the highest place team from Asia.

That leaves just one more spot to be win at the Final Qualifying Tournament. Top two at the Asian Baseball Championship get tickets to the Final Qualifying Tournament along with 4 others countries from the Americas, Europe, and Oceania. This tournament is possibly named “International Cup,” even though the International Cup has been called off since 2010.

Taiwan has just beaten Japan to win the 2019 Asian Baseball Championship. Since Japan already has a spot for 2020, the third place of ABC gets the ticket for the Final Qualifier, and that would be… China.

The 6 final qualifier teams so far looks like this:
Australia, China, the Netherlands, and Taiwan. The 2 additional tickets will go to the 2nd and 3rd place from the Americas qualifier.

If Taiwan placed the highest in the Premier 12 among Asian countries, or win the Final Qualifier, then we get a ticket for 2020.

Teams already qualified for the 2020 Olympics:
Japan, Israel

Team Taiwan’s 2019 Asian Baseball Championship victory:

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Last time Taiwan won the ABC was 18 years ago.

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I’m a little pissed at Japan for limiting it to six teams.

I was hoping Korea would take the bronze at the ABC so it’s not do-or-die for them at the Premier 12.

Our Premier 12 team is seeing a lot of attrition from the original 28-man roster. Cc Lee, Sung, and Hu Chihwei are out. PJ will probably be out too.

Ultimately, I think players are just not patriotic enough.

I can’t see how this is much of an improvement from the 2017 World Classic team. Except 江 and Kanu should be more experienced. And we’ll have Fatty and the Show.

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Even though on paper Taiwan only has have the placement among Asian teams at Premier 12, in reality, it’s a near impossible task.

This is what P12 pools look like:

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Taiwan is in Group B with Japan, Venezuela, and Puerto Rico…

It means to place better than Korea and Australia, Taiwan has to at least be top 2 with in Group B by defeating 3 of the best teams in the world.

I find it odd that P12 awards 1 Olympic ticket to the best placed Asian Pacific team, however there’s a good probability that all 3 AP teams fail to advance to round 2 in P12.

If that happens, what then? Compare run scored / run given?

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What? I don’t understand this set up.

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The top two teams not already qualified advance to the final Olympic qualifiers. Since Japan qualifies by virtue of being hosts, the next two are Taiwan and China.

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I think it’s doable. We took Puerto Rico to extra innings last time around. Venezuela will be tough but so was Cuba.

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I thought the Asian Baseball Championships was the qualifier but it appears that I misunderstood? It’s the qualifier of the qualifier? I don’t follow baseball that closely but don’t you want teams from the US and Cuba and Puerto Rico?

You have to invite China or you offend the feelings of the Chinese people.

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I don’t understand how Taiwan is not in after winning the Asian Championships.

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I’m not the person to ask but have you heard of the IOC?

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This year, the Asian baseball championship is the qualifier for the qualifier.

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If Japan didn’t host the games and get awarded an automatic ticket, then the winner of Asian Baseball Championship would probably win a spot in the Olympics.

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It also didn’t hurt that we used two major leaguers in the ABC.

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Interestingly those two major leaguers aren’t on the P12 roster.

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Nobody on any 40-man MLB rosters can play in the P12.

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https://tw.sports.appledaily.com/sports/20191023/BOMVYIFKP4Y6IYVMIOSVHAELUQ/

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So Group B games for Premier 12 began yesterday. Taiwan won against Puerto Rico 6 to 1, while Japan rallied ahead of Venezuela in late innings to pull off an 8 to 4 victory.

The starting pitcher for Taiwan, Chiang Shao-Ching (江少慶) was dominant the whole game, and for a while Taiwan held on to a thin lead thanks to Lin Li’s 2 run blast in the first inning.

However, Puerto Rico’s defense unraveled in the 5th and 6th inning, giving Taiwan 4 extra runs to coast to the win.

If Japan defeats Puerto Rico tonight at Taoyuan, and Team Taiwan pull off another victory over Venezuela, then Taiwan and Japan will advance to the next round together.

By the way, Chiang Shao-Ching was with Cleveland Indian’s 3A team, Columbus Clippers, for the entire 2019 season. He’s likely to make it to the big leagues next season.

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I’m eating the opposing team’s national dishes for this tournament. For Puerto Rico, I drove to La Casa de Mofongo in Maryland and tried mofongo with chicken. Mofongo was good, the chicken was phenomenal.

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Where are you going to get some Pabellón Criollo today?

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I couldn’t. There was a Venezuelan food truck in DC I called that had it, but I had to get home for a webinar so didn’t have time.

So I have to fudge it a little and switch days.

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Hopefully, I’ll get pabellón tomorrow.

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You’ve got to be kidding me. 張智豪Over林哲瑄in center again?

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If Lin had started last game we would’ve probably had a shutout cuz he could’ve gunned down that runner at home.

Not sure 張even has a better bat. In the last game, coach explained that they out more lefties in there because the pitcher is really a lot worse with lefties. What’s the excuse this time?

This ticks me off.