The

qualifying round Qualification may refer to: Processes * Qualifications-Based Selection (QBS), a competitive contract procurement process established by the United States Congress * Process qualification, ensures that manufacturing and production processes can ...

of the

2023 World Baseball Classic The 2023 World Baseball Classic (WBC) was an international professional baseball tournament and the fifth iteration of the World Baseball Classic. It began on March 8, 2023, and ran until March 21. It was originally scheduled to take place in ...

, officially called The World Baseball Classic 2022 Qualifiers was held from 16 September 2022 to 5 October 2022. Teams which participated at the

2017 World Baseball Classic The 2017 World Baseball Classic (WBC) was an international professional baseball competition, composed of 16 competing nations, held from March 6 to 22, 2017. It was the fourth iteration of the World Baseball Classic. The first-round hosts wer ...

automatically qualified for the 2023 tournament. The qualifying round consisted of two tournaments to be participated by six teams each. The qualifiers were planned to be hosted in

Tucson, Arizona Tucson (; ; ) is a city in Pima County, Arizona, United States, and its county seat. It is the second-most populous city in Arizona, behind Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, with a population of 542,630 in the 2020 United States census. The Tucson ...

in the United States but after the delay, the qualifier hosts were changed to the cities of

Regensburg Regensburg (historically known in English as Ratisbon) is a city in eastern Bavaria, at the confluence of the rivers Danube, Naab and Regen (river), Regen, Danube's northernmost point. It is the capital of the Upper Palatinate subregion of the ...

, Germany at

Armin-Wolf-Arena Armin-Wolf-Arena is a baseball stadium located in Regensburg, Germany. It was built in 1996 and has a capacity of 3,100 spectators. It hosts the home games of Guggenberger Legionäre Regensburg of the Bundesliga Baseball and has hosted the 200 ...

and Panamá City, Panama at

Estadio Rod Carew es:Estadio is the spanish language word for Stadium A stadium (: stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage completely or partially surrounded by a tiered s ...

. Winners and runners-up of each of the two tournaments qualified for the 2023 World Baseball Classic. The first qualifying tournament was originally scheduled to be held from March 13–18, 2020 and the second from March 20–25, 2020, before the qualifiers' postponement was announced on March 12, 2020, by

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. In resolving the

2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout The 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout was the ninth work stoppage in Major League Baseball (MLB) history. It began at 12:01 a.m. Eastern Time Zone, EST on December 2, 2021, after MLB owners voted unanimously to enact a Lockout (sp ...

and the

Major League Baseball Players Association The Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) is the labor union representing all current Major League Baseball (MLB) and Minor League Baseball (MiLB) players. All players, managers, coaches, and athletic trainers who hold or have held ...

agreed that the

World Baseball Classic The World Baseball Classic (WBC), also referred to as the Classic, is an international baseball tournament sanctioned by the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC), the sport's global governing body, and organized in World Baseball Clas ...

would return in 2023 and that qualifiers would begin in September 2022.

Qualified teams

2023 World Baseball Classic qualification

Note: Numbers in parentheses indicate positions in the

WBSC World Rankings The WBSC World Rankings is a ranking system for national teams in baseball, softball, and baseball5. The teams of the member nations of the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC), the world governing body for both sports, are ranked based o ...

Players

Venues

Pools composition

Note: Numbers in parentheses indicate positions in the

. The format was double-elimination. Each pool contained six teams, two of which are given a bye to the second round. The highest ranked teams in the WBSC World Rankings (the Czech Republic and Germany in Pool A, and Panama and Nicaragua in Pool B) received the byes. Four of the teams had previously participated in the main WBC tournament: Panama and South Africa in 2006 and 2009 (which were by invitation), and Brazil and Spain in 2013. All four had participated in all qualifying tournaments. Argentina played in WBC qualifiers for the first time, replacing the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

, which appeared in previous qualifying tournaments held in 2012 and 2016. The other 11 teams had all previously participated in WBC qualifying. Two have previously won their qualifying group and qualified for the main tournament (Brazil, Spain), six have previously finished as high as second in their qualifying group (Germany, Great Britain, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Panama, South Africa), Two have previously finished as high as third in their qualifying group (Czech Republic, France), and one has previously finished last in its qualifying group (Pakistan).

Qualifying round

Pool A

*Home team designation determined by coin toss.

Pool B

*Home team designation determined by coin toss.

References

External links

Official website
{{World Baseball Classic World Baseball Classic - Qualification

World Baseball Classic qualification World Baseball Classic qualification is the process that determines which nations will compete at the World Baseball Classic. Qualification takes place the year prior to the tournament, which itself is played every four years. Currently, the Worl ...