New WBSC World Ranking methodology starts in 2025
The World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) announced an update to the WBSC World Rankings Methodology and Guidelines, aiming to provide all teams with equal opportunities and enhancing competitive balance among programmes from different continents. The new methodology, available here, will be implemented with the first update of the rankings in 2025.
The ranking methodology outline the rules for calculating and managing rankings across all disciplines - Men's Baseball, Women's Baseball, Men's Softball, Women's Softball and Baseball5. These documents categorise events and specify how points are awarded to participating teams based on their tournament performance.
The most significant change specifies that only the most recent edition of any event will be included in the World Rankings for its respective discipline. The ranking points earned by any national team will remain in the World Ranking for exactly four years. However, if an event takes place within four years of the previous edition, the points from the earlier edition will be removed from the rankings as soon as the next edition is held.
The new methodology also outlines the points calculation for the new two-stage World Cups, introduced in 2023, as well as the different competition categories.
With the next edition of the WBSC Premier12 taking place in 2027 and its qualifiers in 2026. the top 12 teams in the WBSC Men’s Baseball World Ranking on 31 December, 2025 will earn an invitation to participate in the WBSC's flagship tournament while the teams 13-18 plus two hosts will feature in the qualifiers.
In 2009, the world governing body for baseball, IBAF, published for the first time the men’s baseball world ranking, followed by the women’s baseball in 2012. In 2016, after the merger between IBAF and the ISF (former international governing body for softball), the WBSC published the world rankings for women’s and men’s softball disciplines, which tracked the performance of each country’s National Team in the Softball World Cups. The latest ranking was introduced in 2023, with the launch of the Baseball5 World Ranking.