Posted By Jeff Fletcher on March 23, 2009 5:48 pm

Brad Ziegler rejoined the A’s today after his World Baseball Classic experience, and he had lots of good things to say about the WBC, which he called “the best baseball experience of my life.”

But…

Ziegler pitched 3 1/3 innings in the WBC. With two weeks to go before opening day, he said he’s badly in need of some more work. Ziegler said the format that saw the U.S. team play eight games in 22 days needs some tweaking.

“You can’t have all the days off when we are trying to get ready for the season,” Ziegler said. “If their focus is still making sure we are ready for the season, we can’t be playing eight games in 22 days. At that point, there isn’t a single person there that’s getting the repetitions they need to get ready for the season.”

Ziegler, newly elected as the A’s union rep, said the Players’ Association will be presenting MLB with a “package” of ideas about “how we can make it better. Hopefully they’ll at least look at it and consider the ideas.”

Other than the lack of work, though, Ziegler said the WBC was a great baseball experience. He said the highlight was the come-from-behind win over Puerto Rico in an elimination game. He said all the players got along great, and routinely went to dinner in groups of 16 or 18.

He rejected the notion that the U.S. players didn’t care.

“I don’t know what initially gave that impression,” he said. “It might have been the guys that turned it down, but the guys who were there really wanted to be there. Every single guy was so thrilled to be in that clubhouse.”