WBSC/KONAMI Men's Baseball World Ranking update: Japan remains on top as Chinese Taipei, Puerto Rico and Colombia biggest climbers inside top 12
Japan (4,899 points) remains on top of the WBSC/KONAMI Men's Baseball World Ranking after their winning effort in Colombia saw them crowned world champions at the WBSC U-15 Baseball World Cup. Now, Japan holds the WBSC U-15, U-18 and U-23 Baseball World Cups, in addition to the WBSC Women's Baseball World Cup, the World Baseball Classic, the Olympic gold medal and the Premier12 title.
The second position still belongs to Mexico (4,063) points, and the new member on the podium is Chinese Taipei (3,706), who has moved up two spots to take third place.
The points calculation, which includes results of international tournaments over a four year period, includes results from the WBSC U-15 Baseball World Cup, WBSC U-12 and U-18 Baseball World Cup European qualification tournaments, U-15 Pan Am qualifier, European Championship Qualifiers and some friendly series while also removing the points from the WBSC Premier12 2019.
USA fell one spot to fourth while Venezuela moved one position up to fifth, South Korea fell two spots to sixth with the Netherlands as the top European country, remaining in seventh.
Inside the top 12 positions, Puerto Rico and Colombia are the biggest movers, moving up two spots to be in 10th and 11th respectively.
Nicaragua moved up three spots to become the 17th programme in the world and was the biggest climber in the world’s top 25.
Overall the Bahamas and Poland were the biggest movers, up 12 places to 47th and up 11 places to 61st place respectively.
The next WBSC/KONAMI Men's Baseball World Ranking update will be published after the WBSC U-23 Baseball World Cup tournament, which will be held from 6-15 September.