The Best—and the Worst—of the WBC

Woke up to this Tweet from journalist and novelist Ross Barkan:

Ross Barkan @RossBarkan

The 2023 American WBC lineup could be the greatest ever assembled, including ASG games. It may have one of the highest cumulative WARs ever

Which he followed up with this:

Ross Barkan @RossBarkan

A good subject for the @JPosnanski Substack

Thanks Ross. It is, indeed, a good subject — that U.S. lineup, which came through with three runs against Colombia on Wednesday as the U.S. advanced in the World Baseball Classic, does indeed look spectacular and wonderful. Let’s look at it for a moment, first including bWAR:

1. Mookie Betts, rf (56.4 WAR)

2. Mike Trout, cf (82.4 WAR)

3. Paul Goldschmidt, 1b (58.5 WAR)

4. Nolan Arenado, 3b (52.2 WAR)

5. Pete Alonso, dh (14.2 WAR)

6. Kyle Schwarber, lf (11.2 WAR)

7. Tim Anderson, 2b (18.2 WAR)

8. Will Smith, c (10.7 WAR)

9. Trea Turner, ss (29.7 WAR)

First thing I would say is