Never before has the World Baseball Classic taken such a big bite out of the Braves’ spring-training roster.
The Braves will have five major league players in the March 6-22 international tournament including their best hitter (Freddie Freeman), their leadoff man (Ender Inciarte) and three-fifths of their starting rotation (Julio Teheran, Bartolo Colon, Jaime Garcia).
All will play for their home countries except Freeman, who’ll play first base for Canada to honor his late mother, Rosemary, a native Canadian who died from melanoma in 2000. Freeman was born and raised in southern California, but both his parents were from Canada.
“It is going to be a very emotional day for me when I put on that Canada uniform come March 9,” Freeman posted on his Twitter account. “I carry my mother with me every day and I can’t wait to represent her by playing in her honor.”
Inciarte will play for a loaded Venezuela squad, Teheran for Colombia, Garcia for Mexico and Colon for defending champion Dominican Republic. Colon is designated to join the Dominican team if it advances past the first round.
Five Braves minor leaguers are also on WBC rosters: outfielder Mel Rojas Jr. (Dominican Republic) and pitchers Andrew Albers (Canada), Steve Kent (Australia), Jon Kennedy (Australia) and Andres Avila (Mexico).
Games will be played in Korea, Japan, Mexico, Miami, San Diego and Los Angeles, which hosts the semifinals and championship game March 20-22 at Dodger Stadium. Pool play is March 6-12 and eight teams advance to the second round March 12-19.
Colombia, Canada and the Dominican Republic join Team USA in a Miami first-round pool March 9-12 at Marlins Park.
Teheran is joined by White Sox All-Star Jose Quintana on Colombia’s roster. One of those pitchers is likely to start Colombia’s March 10 opener vs. the United States and the other would presumably face Freeman and Canada March 11.
Freeman said two years ago that he hoped to play in a tournament for Canada someday as a tribute to his mother. The opportunity was there after Reds first baseman Joey Votto, a Canadian, decided not to play in this year’s WBC.
Truth be told, major league team officials would prefer that their players not participate in the WBC. Not only can it interfere with spring training for the major league team that employs the players and pays their salaries, it also potentially puts the players at greater risk of injury.
“I don’t want to speak for the Braves or John Hart, but I would rather not have (Teheran) pitch in it,” Braves general manager John Coppolella said in December, when Teheran was the only Braves pitcher committed to the tournament. “It’s a great event and we fully support MLB, but you worry about guys getting hurt. I mean, just being honest.”
Said Hart, Braves president of baseball operations: “For a pitcher, if you give him his program and you give him his marching orders, what he can and can’t do (while with his WBC team) … Julio’s a veteran. He knows what to do. He’ll kind of be with us back and forth” between Miami and Braves camp outside Orlando.
The injury possibility is a particular concern with pitchers, who can get caught up in the adrenaline rush of pitching for their home country and push themselves too hard in March, at a time when they would usually be building arm strength while pitching in low-key spring training games in Florida or Arizona.
But since Major League Baseball is heavily involved with presenting the WBC and sees it as a means of growing the game worldwide, team officials are measured in their public criticism of the tournament. It’s viewed as something of a necessary evil by MLB teams, who’d just as soon the rosters be filled out by players from teams other than their own.
Plenty of MLB team officials like the concept of the tournament, but the timing couldn’t be much worse.
“At the end of it, it’s not as tough for a pitcher as far as sort of missing time in camp, if you’ve got a pitching coach down there (with the WBC team) who knows when Julio’s supposed to do his sides and his work out in-between,” Hart said. “The only real problem is these guys have to ramp up to go more innings than how we (normally) bring them along (in spring training). But when else can you play it if you’re going to have it? But that’s the only trick, how far can they go, and get ramped up, and does that affect them at all during the year? That’s the only question.”
Braves who’ve participated in past World Baseball Classics included Chipper Jones, Brian McCann and, in the most recent one in 2013, Craig Kimbrel and Andrelton Simmons.
Freeman playing for Canada probably isn’t a big concern for the Braves, particularly if Canada were to be eliminated in the first round, in which case he might miss only a week or two of Braves camp. Inciarte, playing for talent-laden Venezuela team, could be gone longer. And each time one of the Braves’ starting pitchers enters a WBC game, team officials might anxiously await a postgame report just for assurance that the pitcher had no physical problems.
“Look, it’s a great event, and we stand by MLB,” Hart said. “But in a vacuum would I want to put anybody at a risk whether it’s in the WBC or whatever it is? No. I want them to pitch for the Braves and to be at as little injury risk as possible….
“We support it, we’re in. But you ask a great question. I think if you poll every general manager, every guy is a little worried about their pitching. Not so much their position players; a guy can get hurt in spring training just as easily as he can in the WBC. But you just worry a little more about your frontline starters.”
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