[1] The automatic qualifiers were Australia, China, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Puerto Rico, South Korea, the United States, and Venezuela.

Four qualification brackets were held in late 2012 and respectively won by Canada, Taiwan, Spain, and Brazil, who joined the WBC as the final four teams (the latter two making their Classic debuts).

As in the 2006 tournament, the first round had a round-robin format, which led to South Korea being eliminated on a run difference tiebreaker.

The fourth-place teams in each group – Brazil, Australia, Spain, and Mexico – had to participate in the qualifying round in order to return for the 2017 tournament.

The Netherlands improved on its surprising 2009 run by advancing to the semifinal game, as did two-time defending champion Japan.

JPBPA demanded a larger share of advertising and merchandise sponsorship revenue for the tournament, a large chunk of which came from Japanese companies.

[3][4] The move was interpreted by some news outlets as a non-final decision, aimed at raising the pressure on MLB.

[5][6] In September 2012, Japanese players agreed to take part after reaching a compromise with tournament organizers on sharing sponsorship and licensing revenue.

Japan had none and two prominent Japanese MLB players, Yu Darvish and Ichiro Suzuki, chose not to play.

Three members of MLB.com's Top 100 prospect participated: Xander Bogaerts, Eddie Rosario, and Jameson Taillon.

As was introduced in Major League Baseball during the 2008 season, replays were only used to adjudicate on home run decisions, to determine whether the ball was fair or foul, over the fence or not, and the impact of fan interference.

However, this rule was never actually employed in this year's Classic, as the only extra-inning game in the tournament ended prior to a 13th inning.