U.S. Olympic Roster Helps Explains Why Baseball Is Exiting The Olympic Scene

The roster for the U.S. Olympic baseball team was announced yesterday and looking at it, it's not hard to see why baseball won't be part of the 2012 Games. There are no major leaguers, which you could guess, but there are barely any top flight prospects which makes things even worse for those who want to see baseball as an Olympic event.

You've got Matt LaPorta, the centerpiece of the CC Sabathia deal, and Colby Rasmus of the Cardinals but just five players on the roster, assuming their teams don't pull them back before the Games, were on Baseball America's list of the top 100 prospects in baseball entering this season. There are some other decent prospects, a few with marginal futures and career AAA types who won't get more than a cup of coffee in the big leagues.

I don't think the United States needs to win for baseball to be successful at the Olympics, far from it. I'd rather see tight games between the U.S., Japan, Cuba and the Dominican than a 1992 Dream Team type rollover. The seasoned teams from elsewhere get a big advantage because the U.S. team isn't the best one possible. To capture the imagination of the rest of the world, however, you need big names from Major League Baseball or, at least, the cream of the crop from the next level. Without them, it's better to skip baseball at the Olympics and focus on the World Baseball Classic.