Olympic baseball a cross between Double-A and Old-Timers Day

YOKOHAMA, Japan (AP) — Imagine Olympic swimming without the world’s top 100. Or track and field missing the 100 strongest and fastest. Or gymnastics, if the 100 most talented weren’t on hand.

That’s what the Olympic baseball tournament is, largely a cross between Double-A ball and Old-Timers Day.

If acronyms are essential to the Olympics, DFA is as significant as IOC.

Many of the players had been designated for assignment, baseball lingo for removed from a 40-man Major League Baseball roster prior to an unconditional release.

There was a diamond talent level far below that displayed at the MLB Futures Game in Denver on July 11, where Washington’s Cade Cavalli and the Yankees Luis Medina both topped 100 mph.

Pitchers did reach triple digits at the Olympics, but that’s because the Yokohama Stadium scoreboard lists kph in addition to mph.

That’s not to say the athletes on the six teams are untalented. They are extremely skilled. But almost all of them are not among the best 1,200 or so baseball players in the world. Is this the type of competition the Olympics should want?

Tampa Bay prospect Shane Baz, who pitched in the Futures Game before heading to Japan, was the most prominent young pitcher, followed by Minnesota’s Joe Ryan, traded on the eve of the tournament in the deal that brought Nelson Cruz to Tampa Bay.

Other than Anthony Gose, whose last big league pitch was five years ago, and Jumbo Diaz, whose last was in 2017, they were the hardest-throwers. Most failed to reach the 95 mph-plus level of top college pitchers such as Jack Leiter. Several maxed out in the upper 80s.

Yes, there were a handful of Olympians who can play at a major league level. Masahiro Tanaka could have remained in MLB this year, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, a 22-year-old right-hander with the...

source https://www.chron.com/sports/article/Olympic-baseball-a-cross-between-Double-A-and-16368804.php