WBC Rosters Unveiled: A Plethora of Current and Former Twins to Watch

Any baseball tournament that is single elimination from the quarterfinals on is of little to no interest to me. 

It is gonna be real tough for the Twins to be ready for the start of the season with so many playing in this tourney.

Looking forward to be in Phoenix for 5 of the games:

• USA
• Canada
• England, GB
• Colombia
• Mexico

Have tix to the game where the crowd will really rock, USA/Mexico. Sold out, 48,000. Anyone who has been to Dodger Stadium knows how those who are of Mexican descent bring an added spirit to the crowd. Loud and cheerful!

¡Viva Mexico!

I'm looking forward to watching this whole tournament.

MLB Network the only way to watch this? (can it even be watched there?)

1 hour ago, miracleb said:

MLB Network the only way to watch this? (can it even be watched there?)

https://www.mlb.com/world-baseball-classic/schedule/2023-03-21

It appears to be on FS1, FS2, Fox, and Tubi. 

41 minutes ago, Thiéres Rabelo said:

The Twins play only one game that overlaps with the WBC, which is the season opener on March 30. Assuming Puerto Rico reaches the final game on the 31st, the worst-case scenario is that those players will simply stay in Miami to be joined by the Twins on the following Monday when the Twins start a three-game series against the Marlins.

They won't need time off after the tournament, as the WBC can just be a replacement for Spring Training. And to be honest, it can be a much better preparation than Spring Training.

The WBC ends on March 21. 

Can anyone explain why Puerto Rico has their own team, and they do play on Team USA?  I mean territories of other countries play for their overall country.  Like Netherlands have players from Aruba, and Curacao.  Great Britain has players from Bahamas, and mostly from USA.  

To me it all makes no sense as most of the players on the non north or central American/Carribean counties are not even from those countries, outside of the Asian counties.  Like what is the point?  

17 minutes ago, Trov said:

Can anyone explain why Puerto Rico has their own team, and they do play on Team USA?  I mean territories of other countries play for their overall country.  Like Netherlands have players from Aruba, and Curacao.  Great Britain has players from Bahamas, and mostly from USA.  

To me it all makes no sense as most of the players on the non north or central American/Carribean counties are not even from those countries, outside of the Asian counties.  Like what is the point?  

Puerto Ricans are incredibly proud of being Puerto Rican.

5 hours ago, Thiéres Rabelo said:

The Twins play only one game that overlaps with the WBC, which is the season opener on March 30. Assuming Puerto Rico reaches the final game on the 31st, the worst-case scenario is that those players will simply stay in Miami to be joined by the Twins on the following Monday when the Twins start a three-game series against the Marlins.

They won't need time off after the tournament, as the WBC can just be a replacement for Spring Training. And to be honest, it can be a much better preparation than Spring Training.

We will see. Your finish date is 10 days off, so it will just affect the team coming together a bit in ST, and it is certainly debatable whether it will be a better preparation for the season. Certainly opinion. I still love the WBC, I just had no idea how many of the 40-man were actually participating. Thanks for the amazing compilation summary of the far reaching web of Twins.

2 hours ago, Trov said:

Can anyone explain why Puerto Rico has their own team, and they do play on Team USA?  I mean territories of other countries play for their overall country.  Like Netherlands have players from Aruba, and Curacao.  Great Britain has players from Bahamas, and mostly from USA.  

To me it all makes no sense as most of the players on the non north or central American/Carribean counties are not even from those countries, outside of the Asian counties.  Like what is the point?  

Why give Australia and Canada teams when Great Britain has a squad? Because they have their own identity, because this isn't the Olympics at all, because it's about fun and bragging rights.

You want to get all outraged over this then go look into the "standards" that many countries are employing to engage players. Anyone even remotely Jewish can play for Isreal, which makes sense because they've had a broad definition of "nation" for 3000 years. You like Olive Garden, you can be Italian for March. You don't even need to like it, necessarily, but if one of your parents wasn't above eating there you can claim them. I saw this WW2 documentary on Netflix that mentioned the Netherlands plus Bert Blyleven circled someone in my section in 2005 so I am eligible for that squad even though my elbow gave up on baseball 40 years ago.

Best advice: take none of this seriously, revel in the joy of baseball and hope the pitchers get enough work in without anyone getting hurt.

Brooks Raley and Jason Adam, though very indirect, reminded me the Twins’ castoffs provide at pipeline for the Rays bullpen.. Makes one think they should have hired a Rays FO person. Then I remember that Boston is a train wreck. Sorry for the stray thought. Back to WBC

5 hours ago, rwilfong86 said:

Puerto Ricans are incredibly proud of being Puerto Rican.

Also, the Puerto Rico team is good enough to stand on its own merits. I'm more curious why Manny Machado gets to play for the DR. Oh, his grandfather grew up in the DR. Mmmkkk. Whatever, you can't expect much from a baseball tournament that is single elimination tournament after pool play. 

11 hours ago, theBOMisthebomb said:

Also, the Puerto Rico team is good enough to stand on its own merits. I'm more curious why Manny Machado gets to play for the DR. Oh, his grandfather grew up in the DR. Mmmkkk. Whatever, you can't expect much from a baseball tournament that is single elimination tournament after pool play. 

My wife is Puerto Rican and has lived in the USA since 2016, whenever she travels anywhere for work, and they ask her where she's from, her answer is Puerto Rico (but lives in Kansas). But yes, you're right about the quality of the team, I think their pitching is the only area where they may come intro trouble but hey have a team that can win the whole thing.