World Baseball Classic revisited

I'm trying to stand back from analysing the World Baseball Classic to find some reason not to keep backing Venezuela at 10-1. As the squads take more shape, the Venezuela pitching looks a different class to anything else in the competition, and they have just won the Caribbean series for the first time in many years, so the team is in form, confident and unified. Obviously the Dominican Republic batting line-up will take some getting through, 3 times in the tournament if it pans out, but it is unlikely to be in any sort of form. The short pitch count in the early rounds is also likely to be in Venezuela's favour with the pitching depth available. The main concerns are that the tournament has basically been set up to guarantee the US gets into the final, and well-rested at that, and that the Venezuela semi-final is likely to be against the Dominican Republic, so Santana may be used then instead of the final. But even then the US is likely to treat it like an all-star game, the roster looks set up this way, and I'd still take Freddy Garcia or Carlos Zambrano in a one-off game against a team who I just can't see throwing themselves preseason around with their bosses watching, and, for nostalgia's sake possibly Clemens starting. I'm more than happy with the 10-1, looking forward to watching it, and if it pans out as I suspect, then it'll be a pretty substantial win.