2023 World Baseball Classic qualification


The qualifying round of the 2023 World Baseball Classic, 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 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 in the United States but after the delay, the qualifier hosts were changed to the cities of Regensburg, Germany at Armin-Wolf-Arena and Panamá City, Panama at Estadio Rod Carew. 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 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As the 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout was resolved in March 2022, Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association agreed that the World Baseball Classic would return in 2023 and that qualifiers would begin in September 2022. MLB announced the schedule of the format in July 2022.

Qualified teams

Note: Numbers in parentheses indicate positions in the WBSC World Rankings.
TeamWorld rankingMethod of qualificationClassic appearancePrevious best position
10th2017 World Baseball Classic5thRound 1
12th2017 World Baseball Classic5thRound 1
21st2017 World Baseball Classic5thRound 1
2nd2017 World Baseball Classic5thRound 2
11th2017 World Baseball Classic2ndRound 1
9th2017 World Baseball Classic5thRunners-up
7th2017 World Baseball Classic5thChampions
17th2017 World Baseball Classic5thRound 2
20th2017 World Baseball Classic2ndRound 2
1st2017 World Baseball Classic5thChampions
4th2017 World Baseball Classic5thRound 2
8th2017 World Baseball Classic5thFourth place
16th2017 World Baseball Classic5thRunners-up
3rd2017 World Baseball Classic5thRunners-up
5th2017 World Baseball Classic5thChampions
6th2017 World Baseball Classic5thThird place
23rdQualifier 1 Winners1st
14thQualifier 1 Runners-up1st
13thQualifier 2 Winners3rdRound 1
15thQualifier 2 Runners-up1st-

Pools composition

Note: Numbers in parentheses indicate positions in the WBSC World Rankings.
Pool APool B

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 received the byes.
Four of the teams had previously participated in the main WBC tournament: Panama and South Africa in 2006 and 2009, 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, 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, six have previously finished as high as second in their qualifying group, Two have previously finished as high as third in their qualifying group, and one has previously finished last in its qualifying group.