While the western WBC teams have yet to release provisional rosters publicly, the
Thanks to @MyKBO for making this and sharing it with everybody on Twitter, as well as making the statistics available.
Go after the jump for analysis.
The WBC is an afterthought for most Americans, aside from freaks like me. But let it not be said that everyone has that opinion. Rest assured, the WBC is a big deal for some people. Just look at what I found while looking on Twitter for WBC news:
RT @bharper3407 FREE YOGURT FOR LIFE @yogurtlandorem if you decide to play in the World Baseball classic!! RT
— Yogurtland Of Orem (@YogurtlandOrem) December 6, 2012
Yes, a yogurt place in Orem, Utah is offering Bryce Harper free yogurt for life if he changes his mind about the World Baseball Classic. Harper is from Nevada and has family in Utah (his girlfriend is a star soccer player for BYU), so he presumably would be able to stop in Orem to collect it. But will the power of yogurt be enough? Time will tell…
THE LATEST PROJECTIONS CAN BE FOUND HERE.
Well, with some players beginning to confirm their inclusion or non-participation in the WBC, here are my latest projections. While Team USA is hurt by the fact that Bryce Harper (who likely wants to spend the spring preparing for what will be just his third year as a professional) and David Price are apparently not going to take part, it is bolstered by the fact that Joe Mauer and David Wright have confirmed that they are in. Starting with this set of projections, players who have confirmed that they are participating will be italicized.
A refresher on my selection rules/assumptions:
Now, go after the jump for the full look:
Continuing as your source for the WBC, go below the jump for the latest update of players that are in, out or somewhere in-between of the WBC.
Here’s an update of yesterday’s post. To save space, go after the jump to see the list.
While most of the western WBC teams aren’t going to reveal their full rosters until January, Japan has already come up with a provisional roster of 34 players. Eventually, they will cut it down to 28 players, but for now, here’s an analysis of their provisional roster. As expected, they have no MLB players, due to the fact they all bailed out. Ichiro, for example, may be with a new team and apparently said after the ’09 Classic that he was unlikely to play in it again because he wants to have gone out on top. Yu Darvish is worried about how his body will be after throwing so much last season. Hiroki Kuroda is old.
So, instead, Japan will be sending an NPB all-star team. Many of these guys could play in MLB if they wanted to and some of them still may. One of them- Kazuo Matsui– was once an MLB player. And, of course, they will have been preparing for a month or more for the tournament, as opposed to the week or so that most of the western teams will.
Don’t underestimate them. Instead, go after the jump for my analysis.
Surprisingly, the provisional rosters for the WBC will be released in January this time around, at least for Team USA. I saw some rumors about this earlier, and it mainly has to do with the fact that the teams that had to go through qualifiers and some logistics dealing with the Asian bracket are what delayed it.
Expect the beginnings of more projections in the next few days, but here’s a list of players we KNOW have committed to the World Baseball Classic, as well as who we KNOW to be out. Go after the jump for it.
This is the Winter Meetings World Baseball Classic update post. I’ll post links and news that I find on Twitter or other online sources about WBC news from the Winter Meetings here. Come back later as more stuff is added.
2:10 PM, Monday: The earliest schedule is up on the WBC website, although not quite complete (some games in the Asian pools are missing), it gives a good idea of what will be going on. Needless to say, there will be early mornings for me in March.
Next off, Chien-Ming Wang will be playing for Taipei in the WBC as a way to showcase himself for teams.
And finally, we have confirmation that Andruw Jones will play for the Netherlands.
3:24 PM, Monday: The schedule for the WBC on the website is no longer there, suggesting to me that somebody put it up before it was supposed to. Joe Torre will apparently be speaking later today, and although it likely will include lots of stuff about his role in the MLB front office, he will surely talk about his role as the manager of Team USA as well.
4:06 PM, Monday: WBC has released an early sheet of some of the notable players who will be playing for each country, although they seem to limit it to a maximum of two per country, presumably to save space on the list.
MLB players on the list include Liam Hendriks and Grant Balfour (for Australia- Balfour is a surprise since he hasn’t pitched for them in past WBCs), Yan Gomes (Brazil), Justin Morneau (Canada), Robinson Cano and Jose Reyes for the DR, Alex Liddi and Italian-American Jason Grilli for Italy, Adrian Gonzalez and Sergio Romo for Mexico, Andruw Jones and Roger Bernadina for the Netherlands, Yadier Molina and Carlos Beltran for PR, David Wright and Joe Mauer for the USA, and Miguel Cabrera and Pablo Sandoval for Venezuela.
4:26 PM, Monday: This is weird. The previous list has been replaced with this one, which has some differences. For example, it replaces Hendriks and Balfour with Ryan Rowland-Smith and Luke Hughes, it adds Brett Lawrie to Canada, it confirms Chien-Ming Wang for Taipei and replaces Sergio Romo with Jaime Garcia. I’m not sure why this is. Perhaps the first one they put up was a first draft or something.
More news if it comes out.
The Dominican Republic national team has a official Twitter feed. It’s in Spanish, of course, but thanks to the internet, here’s what it had to say yesterday, according to Google Translate:
Tony Pena, as a leader, will lead the coaching staff Dominican.
Felix Fermin bench coach Alfredo Griffin first, Juan Samuel third, Bill Castro Launchers …
Denio Gonzales Jose Cano Hitting and Pitching, complete the team’s coaching staff.
Edwin Encarnacion, Willin Rosario, Octavio Dotel, Starlin Mars, and Carlos Santana, attended the activity.
Besides them, Ervin Santana, Edinson Volquez, Carlos Gomez, among others, were present.
General manager @ MoisesAlou18 said other players like A. Pujols, could not attend, but given the support
In short, here’s what it means:
Tony Pena will be the manager of ’13 DR team. Felix Fermin will be the bench coach, Alfredo Griffin the third base coach, etc.
And, more notably, there were some players who attended the news conference about the coaching staff. Here they are, and keep in mind my previous projections for Team DR:
Edwin Encarnacion
Wilin Rosario
Octavio Dotel
Starlin Marte
Carlos Santana
Ervin Santana
Edinson Volquez
Carlos Gomez
Rosario, Dotel, Carlos Santana, Volquez and Carlos Gomez all were in my projections, as was Albert Pujols, who wasn’t at the press conference but apparently gave Moises Alou his “support”, so I guess that means he’d presumably be willing to play as well.
So does this mean that all of these guys will be on the Dominican Republic roster? No, but this news does confirm that all of them are at least interested, and so presumably will be on the provisional rosters when they are released next week. So I guess it could be considered a preview of a preview.
Next week, at the Winter Meetings, the provisional rosters of the World Baseball Classic will be announced. Essentially, these are lists of players who have indicated they will take part if asked. This does not necessarily mean they will ultimately take part (as there is always the risk of a late injury or change of heart), nor that those who aren’t on them won’t (as, again, there could always be a change of heart if it comes early enough).
Once these are released, I will be going through them and creating another round of predicted rosters for the World Baseball Classic, working entirely from the provisional rosters. This will mean Team USA projections version 3.0, Dominican Republic 3.0, Venezuela 2.0, Canada 2.0 and plenty of other projections.
So stay tuned next week!
The Baseball Continuum 