WBSC launches first-ever Baseball5 World Rankings

WBSC launches first-ever Baseball5 World Rankings
12/01/2023
Cuba has the honour of being ranked world No. 1 after claiming the inaugural Baseball5 World Cup in November

The World Baseball Softball Confederation today launched the first-ever world rankings for Baseball5, which includes 43 countries or territories representing four continents.

The newly implemented world ranking system tracks the performance of a country’s National Team in the Baseball5 World Cups, including youth and top-tier levels, and continental events over a four-year period.

WBSC Baseball5 World Ranking 2022

"The release of these historic WBSC Baseball5 World Rankings is another important milestone for the WBSC and our urban discipline, which we will celebrate,” said WBSC President Riccardo Fraccari. “To feature 40 countries from the beginning with many from Europe and Africa, proves that with Baseball5 we are hitting our target and successfully bringing baseball/softball to places not possible before. I’d like to congratulate and thank all those that have supported and contributed to this project, we are just getting started.”

Cuba has the honour of being the first-ever world No. 1 after claiming the inaugural Baseball5 World Cup in November. It leads the historic Baseball5 World Rankings with 2,055 points, ahead of Asian champions and World Cup bronze medallists Chinese Taipei (1,679) and France (1,650) the current European champion in youth and open categories.

The top 10 includes one more Asian country (Japan, fourth with 1,635 points), one from the Americas (Venezuela, in fifth place with 1,370 points), three African nations (No. 6 South Africa, No. 8 Tunisia and No. 9 Kenya) and two Europeans (No. 7 Lithuania and No. 10 Italy).

The Baseball5 ranking system is similar to the well-established WBSC Baseball and Softball World Rankings methodology but with a different points allocation for youth and continental events in order to give countries greater opportunities to rise up the rankings.

For example, the Baseball5 World Cup provides a maximum of 1,200 points (plus a 180-point bonus to the winner) with a minimum of 120 points. The Youth Baseball5 World Cup will guarantee a maximum of 900 points (plus a 100-point bonus to the winner) with a minimum of 90 points.

Other main events are the Youth Olympic Games (maximum 700 points plus a 90-point bonus to the winner), Continental Championships, Youth Continental Championships, Continental Multisport events and Youth Continental multisport events. National Federations will collect points also participating in regional events sanctioned by the WBSC.