Ranking the World Baseball Classic rosters

As part of our continuing coverage of the World Baseball Classic, we're going to take a look at the rosters for each country in each of the four pools today. We broke down the rosters yesterday, looking at the major league talent on each, and now we're going to determine how the teams rank in each pool. POOL A 1) Japan. Despite not having any major league talent on the roster, the two-time WBC champions still have a solid roster for this year's Classic. Shinnosuke Abe, who had a .340/.429/.565 line with a Central League-leading 27 homers last season, is on the club, as is Hayato Sakamoto, who hit .311/.359/.456 with 14 homers and 16 steals. When you throw in stud pitcher Kenta Maeda (1.53 ERA, 171 strikeouts in 206 1/3 innings), vicious set-up man Tetsuya Yamaguchi (0.84 ERA, 68 strikeouts, seven walks in 75 1/3 innings), and starter Toshiya Sugiuchi (2.04 ERA, 172 strikeouts in 163 innings), Team Japan is looking just as strong as they have in the past despite not ha...