WBSC World Rankings

Top 20 Baseball Rankings as of 26 November 2014[1]
Rank	Team	Points	Confederation
1	Japan	785.18	BFA
2	United States	766.02	COPABE
3	Cuba	662.98	COPABE
4	Chinese Taipei	605.48	BFA
5	Netherlands	433.50	CEB
6	Dominican Republic	379.18	COPABE
7	Canada	353.52	COPABE
8	South Korea	340.90	BFA
9	Puerto Rico	291.50	COPABE
10	Venezuela	269.00	COPABE
11	Italy	196.18	CEB
12	Mexico	136.78	COPABE
13	Panama	132.92	COPABE
14	Australia	127.82	BCO
15	Brazil	116.61	COPABE
16	Nicaragua	110.77	COPABE
17	Spain	105.52	CEB
18	Germany	78.90	CEB
19	Colombia	69.00	COPABE
20	Czech Republic	68.93	CEB

The WBSC World Rankings is a ranking system for national teams in baseball and softball. The teams of the member nations of the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC), baseball's world governing body, are ranked based on their tournament results with the most successful teams being ranked highest. A point system is used, with points being awarded based on the results of WBSC-recognized international tournaments. Under the existing system, rankings are based on a team's performance over the last four years, with major international tournaments awarded a higher weighting compared to minor international and continental tournaments.

History

In January 2009, the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) first published a listing in rank order of its member associations to provide a basis for comparison of the relative strengths of these teams. Though primarily focused on the respective men's senior teams of member nations, the current ranks also include points awarded based on results at the IBAF 'AAA' (Under 18) Junior and 'AA' (Under 16) Youth Championships held during the tracking period. Beginning in 2015, the rankings also determine which twelve teams participate in the WBSC Premier12 tournament.

Women's baseball rankings

Women's Baseball Rankings as of 8 October 2014[2]
Rank	Team	Points	Confederation
1	Japan	200.00	BFA
2	United States	160.00	COPABE
3	Australia	123.33	BCO
4	Canada	110.00	COPABE
5	Venezuela	80.00	COPABE
6	Chinese Taipei	73.33	BFA
7	Netherlands	26.67	CEB
8	Cuba	23.33	COPABE
9	Hong Kong	20.00	BFA
10	Puerto Rico	10.00	COPABE
11	South Korea	6.67	BFA

The initial women's baseball rankings were based upon results from past Women's Baseball World Cups. While the calculations of the women's rankings are similar to that of the men's, one main difference is that they are inclusive of the three most recent IBAF Women's Baseball World Cups whereas the men's rankings only include the last two. Points are weighted in favor of the more recent results.^[3]

Softball rankings

In the wake of the International Olympic Committee's decision to cut baseball from the 2012 Olympics program, the IBAF pushed the growth of women's baseball as to include a women's component in its bid for a reinstatement of the sport in future Olympics. The effort to unify the sports resulted in the merger of the IBAF with the International Softball Federation in 2013 to create the WBSC.^[4] As a result, the WBSC is also responsible for ranking international men's and women's softball teams.

Top 10 Women's Softball Rankings[5]
Rank	Team	Points
1	Japan	15.6
2	United States	15.0
3	Australia	13.0
4	Canada	12.8
5	Chinese Taipei	10.8
6	China	9.9
7	Netherlands	8.8
8	New Zealand	8.2
9	Italy	7.6
10	Czech Republic	6.2

Top 10 Men's Softball Rankings[5]
Rank	Team	Points
1	New Zealand	13.4
2	Canada	12.2
3	Australia	11.4
4	Venezuela	10.8
5	Japan	9.8
6	Argentina	9.4
7	Czech Republic	7.2
7	United States	7.2
9	Dominican Republic	6.6
10	Mexico	5.4

Calculation method

Under the current system used, points are awarded to member nations based purely on their final position in recognised international tournaments.^[6] This is opposed to other international sports ranking systems such as the ICC Test Championship for cricket, that is based on both individual matches and the results of series, or the FIFA World Rankings for football, that is based solely on individual matches.

Points are awarded according to the following table:

The points awarded after 4th place are spread evenly in an attempt to ensure balance between tournaments with different-sized fields: finishing 6th out of 20 teams is considered to be a higher accomplishment than finishing 6th out of 8 teams. Given that points are not fixed beyond 4th place, a calculation is used to determine how many points are awarded to each position. The calculation gives the difference between any two consecutive positions from 4th through to last (e.g. 4th and 5th, 7th and 8th, 21st and 22nd, etc.). The calculation is:

This is illustrated in the following table:

A multiplier is used in awarding points, based on the prestige of the tournament and the quality of the teams involved. The table below reflects the changes in the international baseball schedule recently approved by the WBSC. Below are the multipliers that will be used beginning in 2012.

World Baseball Classic 6x (Winner receives 50 points, multiplied by 6 for a total of 300 points)

Premier 12 6x

WBC Qualifiers * (Pool winner receives 50 points, 2nd – 40 pts, 3rd – 30 pts, 4th – 15 pts)

21U and 18U 2x

15U and 12U 1x

Continental Championships, Continental Qualifiers, and all other WBSC-sponsored events will receive a multiplier based on the number of top-10 teams from the previous year-end rankings that are entered in the tournament. (See below)

1.00× - Continental Championships/Qualifying Tournaments, where 3 or more competing teams are in the previous year-end top 10

0.75× - Continental Championships/Qualifying Tournaments, where 2 competing teams are in the previous year-end top 10

0.50× - Continental Championships/Qualifying Tournaments, where 1 competing team is in the previous year-end top 10

0.25× - Continental Championships/Qualifying Tournaments, where no competing teams are in the previous year-end top 10

After each tournament where ranking points are awarded, the WBSC re-releases the ranking list with the points from the most recent tournament added, and points from tournaments more than four years old removed.

Notes and references

External links

• IBAF.com

International baseball WBSC (former governing body: IBAF) World Rankings Teams Major World Events World Baseball Classic WBSC Premier12 Women's Baseball World Cup Minor World Events Haarlem Baseball Week World Port Tournament Universiade University Little League World Series 21U Baseball World Cup 18U Baseball World Cup 15U Baseball World Cup 12U Baseball World Cup Defunct World Events Baseball World Cup Intercontinental Cup Women's Baseball World Series Olympics Africa African Baseball & Softball Association – All-Africa Games Americas Pan American Baseball Confederation – Pan American Games America Cup Caribbean Series Central American and Caribbean Games South American Games Asia Baseball Federation of Asia – Asian Championship Asian Games Junior (under 18) Southeast Asian Games SAARC Baseball Championship Asia Series Europe Confederation of European Baseball – European Championship European Cup "Final Four" Under-21 Junior (under 18) Youth (under 16) Juveniles (under 12) Oceania Baseball Confederation of Oceania – Oceania Championship Pacific Games