2026 World Baseball Classic Qualifiers

The 2026 World Baseball Classic Qualifiers will take place in February and March 2025, to determine the final four teams that will take part in the 2026 World Baseball Classic one year later. The qualifiers will feature two pools of four teams, with the top two teams in each pool moving on to the main tournament.

Pool A will take place at the Taipei Dome from February 21-25, 2025. It will feature  Chinese Taipei,  Nicaragua  South Africa and  Spain. Pool B will take place in Tucson, AZ from March 2-6 and will feature  Brazil,  People's Republic of China,  Colombia and  Germany. All eight teams except for Germany have participated in the main tournament at least once in the past. It was the smallest qualifying tournament yet, as the prior ones had all featured 12 teams. Cut from the qualifiers were  Argentina,  France,  New Zealand and  Pakistan; France and New Zealand had taken part in all three prior qualifiers.

Further Reading

• Michael Clair: "World Baseball Classic qualifiers announced", mlb.com, November 12, 2024. [1]