Taiwan have overtaken South Korea and climbed back to the No. 2 spot in the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) world rankings for men’s baseball, behind Japan.
With the 3,321 points Taiwan have accumulated since 2018, they took second place from South Korea, who now rank third with 3,137 points, according to the rankings released yesterday by the world governing body for baseball and softball.
The rankings are based on the performance of teams in WBSC tournaments over the past four years, with major international events given a higher weighting than minor competitions.
However, they do not take into account the caliber of a nation’s professional baseball league or its players competing professionally around the world.
With the COVID-19 pandemic impacting international baseball tournaments globally, Taiwan only participated in the U23 Baseball World Cup last year.
Taiwan finished in sixth place at tournament held from Sept. 23 to Oct. 2 last year, collecting 355 ranking points.
Previously, Taiwan finished fifth at the flagship Premier 12 tournament in November 2019 and won the Asian Championship in October that year.
In other tournaments held in 2019, Taiwan won both the U18 Baseball World Cup in August and the U12 Baseball World Cup in July.
In 2018, Taiwan participated in nine tournaments, among them the Asian Games, in which they finished third, and the U23 Baseball World Cup, in which they finished fifth.
Taiwan’s strong showing in 2019 lifted the team to No. 2 in the rankings in June last year, but they fell to third place behind South Korea in August.
Olympic champions Japan remain the top-ranked team with 3,752 points, while Mexico (2,722) surpassed the US (2,445) to move into fourth place, their highest ever ranking.
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