Anyone else following Israel in their WBC?
For those unaware, here's a recap:
-It was nothing short of a miracle that they even qualified for the 16 team tournament back in September. Led by Ike Davis and Jason Marquis, everyone thought this might convince some of the solid Jewish MLB regulars to join the actual event (Braun, Bregman, Joc, Kinsler, Pillar, Valencia to name a few) but for various reasons none of them did (USA gets to play in Miami so some of them are playing for USA where they are also eligible, or they don't want to risk injury or whatever).
-They have 0 players who are currently on an MLB 40 man roster. Their best player is probably Sam Fuld who missed all of 2016 with a shoulder injury and is currently a FA. Only Ty Kelly and Ike Davis had at bats in the 2016 season (by my count).
-There are 4 pools of 4 teams. They are in a pool with Korea, Chinese Taipei and Netherlands. They all play each other and 2 move on to the final 8. They are not supposed to leave this pool. ESPN ranked Korea 6th, Netherlands 9, Chinese Taipei 10th and Israel 14th. Bovada sportsbook had Israel 200:1 to win the tournament.
-The coolest part is that these guys are bonded by being Jewish, having so much fun with it. They adopted this giant Mascot doll called Moshe aka Mentsch on the Bench, that they give "sacrifices to" (think Jobu from Major League) like manishewitz wine, gelt and gefilte fish. They put on blue Kippas for the anthem.
-Earlier this week they beat Korea 2-1 in 10 innings and they just beat Chinese Taipei 15-7. The Korea one in particular was a huge upset. Netherlands beat Korea so Korea is out. If Netherlands beat Taipei or Israel beats Netherlands, they advance. If there are 3 2-1 teams or 3 1-2 teams it gets complicated and tie breaker games will be required. The 2 teams that ultimately advance join the round of 8 (2 more pools of 4). Then again top 2 from each pool advance, and the final 4 has its own mini tournament to determine the winner.
Up next for Israel: Netherlands (Simmons, Profar, Bogaerts, Schoop) Wednesday at 10pm ET.
How far can these yidden go?