Today at 10am, Joe Torre released a provisional 27 man roster for the World Baseball Classic. Above is a break down of that roster. The team has some powerful bats in Ryan Braun, Mark Teixiera, Giancarlo Stanton and David Wright. I like the team that was put together but I don’t love it. This is why Baseball was eliminated as an Olympic sport. Countries continuously brought their top talent and the U.S. shows up with a B team.
You have to love the strong outfield on Team USA but where is Josh Hamilton, Mike Trout and Bryce Harper? The infield looks pretty strong but where is Troy Tulowitzki? He was rumored to be on the roster but then come 10am and his name was left off. Another person who was oddly left off the roster is Andy Pettitte. He was confirmed to be on the team but was left off the roster due to his contract being uninsured. Pettitte is 40 years old and was injured for 3 months last season. So his contract was too risky to insure should he get injured.
Pettitte would have been a nice addition to what I think is a drab rotation behind Cy-Young winner R.A. Dickey but, where is David Price, Clayton Kershaw and Justin Verlander? That would have been a great group of guys to see on the mound along with Dickey. Nothing against Torre’s team, he obviously did his best but I’m wondering why all these guys said no to representing the United States.
The World Baseball Classic is very popular throughout the world but as long as MLB players keep turning down the opportunity to put on the red white and blue, it’s never going to be very popular in the U.S.
Team USA will begin there quest to dethrone Japan on March 8th at 9pm ET.
