It’s a little late for Canada Day, but here are some projections for the Canucks. Well, projections for what they’ll be if they qualify, because they have to: they lost both of their games in 2009, falling to Team USA and then being upset by Italy… on home turf. What’s worse, Canada won’t be able to call upon the major leaguers, as their qualifying pool is this September in Germany, when Joey Votto, Brett Lawrie and friends will be busy. Now, admittedly, a team of minor leaguers and semi-pros from Canada should be able to handle the best that Czech Republic, Germany and the UK will send, but you’d have thought that Canada could handle Italy (even with a few Italian-American ringers), and look how that went.

Still, let’s just assume that Canada qualifies and make the tournament proper, allowing them to get a hold of the rapidly-growing amount of Canadians in MLB. Then they become dangerous, a dark horse that could, conceivably, win the tournament if they got a few breaks here and there. They have lots of guys who can play in lots of places, and

So, as usual, a rundown of the rules, and then the roster after the jump:

• 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.
• Players that will be on new teams are less likely to participate, but shouldn’t be completely ignored, with the exception of pitchers.
• 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.

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