This post is part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page.

We are over a year from the 2017 World Baseball Classic, and the road will no doubt be filled with commitments, pull-outs, unusual nationality switches, injuries, trades, new contracts, personal decisions and god-knows-what-else still on the way. But, for now, let’s just imagine everybody is available: who’d be on Team Dominican in the 2017 World Baseball Classic?

Perhaps it would look something like this. Now, a reminder of the WBC roster rules:

• Any player coming off a major injury or who has a history of injuries is unlikely to participate. This is especially true for the pitchers. (This “rule” is being ignored for version 0.1)
• Players that will be on new teams are less likely to participate, but shouldn’t be completely ignored, with the exception of pitchers. (This “rule” is being ignored for version 0.1)
• Teams are made up of 28 players, of which 13 of them must be pitchers and two of them catchers.
• The pitch count rules make relievers extremely important.

Here we go:

Catchers (3): Wellington Castillo, Francisco Pena, Pedro Severino

First Baseman (3): Albert Pujols, Carlos Santana, Edwin Encarnacion

One of them would presumably also DH, obviously.

Second Baseman (1): Robinson Cano

Third Baseman (2): Adrian Beltre, Maikel Franco

Oh, Adrian Beltre will be in his late 30s in 2017, you say? That is true, but I wouldn’t bet against him.

Shortstop (2): Erick Aybar, Jhonny Peralta

Designated Hitter/3B/Who-The-Heck-Knows (1): Miguel Sano

Outfielders (4): Jose Bautista, Nelson Cruz, Carlos Gomez, Starling Marte

Starting Pitchers (4): Johnny Cueto, Carlos Martinez, Danny Salazar, Francisco Liriano

Relief Pitchers (8): Jeurys Familia, Kelvin Herrera, Arodys Vizcaino, Pedro Strop, Santiago Casilla, Luis Garcia, Antonio Bastardo, Alexi Ogando

And so, that’s Version 0.1 of my TeamDR projections. Version 1.0, which will include actual consideration as to whether I think somebody will actually take part or not, will come out sometime in the future. But until then…. feel free to imagine how the team would do if it looked like this.

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At Noon: Mini-Book Reviews!

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This post has been part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page.