Atlanta Braves Freddie Freeman, Julio Teheran and Eight Others Will Compete In the World Baseball Classic
WBC Teams Announce Rosters
In 2017, we’ll get another round of the World Baseball Classic! This year, the Atlanta Braves will send 10 of their players to the tournament. Five of which are on the active 40-man roster and five that are minor league players.
This tournament isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Yes, some may see it as time away from the rest of the team and an extra chance of injury, but I see it as being ready for the season sooner.
Games in the WBC begin on March 6, in Seoul, South Korea. The WBC is similar to soccer tournaments where they have pools and the winner moves on. We’ll see four pools — Pool A, Pool B, Pool C and Pool D. Pool A will play their first round games in the Gochoek Sky Dome in Seoul. Pool B will play at the Tokyo Dome in Japan. Pool C will play at the Marlins Park in Miami and Pool D will play in Mexico.
The entire tournament goes from March 6 through March 22, but don’t expect our players to be playing that late into March.
Before we get any further, here’s the list of Braves players playing in the 2017 World Baseball Classic…
LHP Andrew Albers – Team Canada
RHP Andres Avila – Team Mexico
RHP Bartolo Colon – Team Dominican Republic
1B Freddie Freeman – Team Canada
LHP Jaime Garcia – Team Mexico
OF Ender Inciarte – Team Venezuela
LHP Jon Kennedy – Team Australia
LHP Steven Kent – Team Australia
OF Mel Rojas Jr. – Team Dominican
RHP Julio Teheran – Team Colombia
Bartolo Colon will only join Team Dominican Republic if they advance pas the 1st round. Which DR will most likely will move on.
Here are the different pools for 2017….
Pool A
Korea
The Netherlands
Israel
Chinese Taipei
More from Tomahawk Take
Pool B
Australia
Japan
Cuba
China
Pool C
The United States
Canada
Colombia
The Dominican Republic
Pool D
Venezuela
Mexico
Puerto Rico
Italy
The way these Pools work is the top two teams after the first round move on. Pool C is going to be tough if you’re Canada or Colombia. I can see both Teheran and Freeman joining the Braves quickly after the tournament begins.
The Dominican Republic, the United States, Japan, Puerto Rico are all looking very strong on paper. Team USA is stacked. Might as well put in the prediction that USA will win! Why not?!?
Freddie will play for Team Canada this year after years of hoping. He’s expressed interest in joining the team for a couple WBC, but Canada had Joey Votto and Justin Morneau. 2017 he’ll be able to represent the country both his parents are from. He posted this on twitter tonight…
Can not be more excited to represent Canada at the WBC next month! 🇨🇦Here is a just a brief background of my parents. pic.twitter.com/vpkH1UtUfu
— Freddie Freeman (@FreddieFreeman5) February 9, 2017
Games will be aired on MLB Network, but not all games. If you’d like to watch all, purchase a subscription of MLB.TV Premium.
