Tribe Well Represented in 2017 World Baseball Classic

While many Major League Baseball fans despise the World Baseball Classic as a distraction from Spring Training and an injury risk as athletes ramp up to semi-serious competition much earlier than usual, it remains the best international competition in baseball and often is filled with intense rivalries and entertaining games. Last time around (2013), Carlos Santana helped lead the Dominican Republic to their first title after Japan won in both 2006 and 2009.

For whatever reason, the Indians team is a little less internationally than in some previous seasons. While previous teams have had players from South Korea (Shin-Soo Choo) and Chinese Taipei (C.C. Lee), there are no Asian born players on the current 40 man roster. Of those on the MLB roster, 27 were born in the United States (not including Puerto Rico since they have their own team), 7 were born in the Dominican Republic, 3 in Puerto Rico, one in Venezuela (Carlos Carrasco), one in Brazil (Yan Gomes) and one in Colombia (Giovanny Urshela). Since Brazil didn’t qualify for the tournament, that leaves the Indians Major Leaguers with only five possible teams to play for. This could have been six as Jason Kipnis qualified for team Israel and was asked to play, but he declined. The minors leagues do help fill out the World, however, including Todd Isaacs who played for the UK in the qualifiers.

Team Puerto Rico

All of the Indians Puerto Rican born Major Leaguer are playing for the WBC team this year as Joseph Colon, Francisco Lindor and Roberto Perez will participate. In addition, former Indians Giovanni Soto and Mike Aviles will also play for Puerto Rico. While Perez will likely be a back-up to Yadier Molina at catcher, Lindor provides an awesome chance to see some of the best defenders in baseball play together. The 2016 Platinum Glove winner will likely move Carlos Correa to third base while Javier Baez will man second. Any pitcher should be ecstatic for the privilege of pitching to Molina and in front of the trio of Lindor, Baez and Correa. To balance out the youth, Carlos Beltran will also participate as the DH.

Puerto Rico should have a fairly easy path through the first round at least, matching up with two of the historically weaker teams, Mexico and Italy and a mid-level team in Venezuela. Since two teams make it out of each pool, it would be a gigantic upset for Puerto Rico to lose in the first round. Whoever wins out of pool D will go on to face the two winners of pool C.

Team USA

The majority of the Indians players in both the Major and minor leagues were born in the USA, including multiple players who would be the best at their position for the WBC team. Despite this, only Andrew Miller will play for their home country in the tournament. The Tribe’s incredible lefty has expressed excitement about participating and is looking to pitch in each round. He has never pitched in the WBC and will easily be the team’s top reliever as this team looks to be completely based around an All-Star offense including Paul Goldschmidt and Giancarlo Stanton.

Team USA will open up in pool C against Canada, Colombia and the always strong Dominican Republic.

Team Colombia

There aren’t many big names on team Colombia beyond Jose Quintana, but Cleveland’s Giovanny Urshela will be there to do his part. He has an outside chance at the final utility spot on the Indians’ 25 man roster this year, but he shouldn’t be worried about a lengthy WBC run as Colombia is a heavy underdog against the Dominican Republic and the US.

Team Dominican Republic

Thanks to his late season injuries, Danny Salazar has opted to skip the WBC and work out with the Indians in Goodyear and Edwin Encarnacion will get ready with his new team as well. Carlos Santana will be the only Tribe participant on the Dominican Republic team that won the last WBC tournament. To keep things entertaining, former Indian Bartolo Colon will be with the team.

Team Israel

Israel was the final team added to the 2017 tournament, winning the qualifier in Brooklyn in late September by knocking out Yan Gomes’ team Brazil and Todd Isaacs’ team Great Britain as well as the newest entrant into the qualifying round, Pakistan. While he didn’t play during the qualifying round, Tyler Krieger will play for Israel in the WBC as they take on South Korea, Chinese Taipei and the Netherlands in the first round. This is considered pool A and will be played in Seoul, South Korea and will begin two days before the American tournament begins. The top two teams in pool A will face the top two teams in pool B (Australia, China, Japan and Cuba) in Tokyo starting March 11th.

Team Italy

For the second straight WBC, Chris Colabello will play first base for team Italy. This is an interesting choice as he’s in Indians camp as a minor league invitee, but perhaps he feels he’ll get more plate appearances against Major League pitching in the WBC than he would during Spring Training. Either way, chances are he’ll be back in Goodyear after the first round. Indians minor league reliever, Luis Lugo, will join him in pool D.

Chinese Taipei

From the small island of Taiwan, the Indians have two minor leaguers competing as starting pitcher Shao-Ching Chiang and reliever Ping-Hsueh Chen will represent their homeland.