The roster for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic was announced this morning on MLB Network, and there were some surprises with the final roster. We drew up a dream roster for Team USA at the beginning of the month, and some names for Team USA (along with other teams) started to flow out over the past few days as we neared the release of the provisional rosters today.
Without any further ado, here is the provisional roster for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic.
Catcher: JP Arencibia, Jonathan Lucroy, Joe Mauer
First Base: Mark Teixeira
Second Base: Brandon Phillips, Ben Zobrist
Shortstop: Willie Bloomquist, Jimmy Rollins
Third Base: David Wright
Outfield: Ryan Braun, Adam Jones, Giancarlo Stanton, Shane Victorino
Starting Pitcher: RA Dickey, Derek Holland, Kris Medlen, Ryan Vogelsong
Relief Pitcher: Jeremy Affeldt, Heath Bell, Mitchell Boggs, Steve Cishek, Tim Collins, Luke Gregerson, Craig Kimbrel, Chris Perez, Glen Perkins, Vinnie Pestano
The most interesting omission is Andy Pettitte, who was initially announced as being a member of Team USA last week, but apparently had second thoughts and pulled out.
We'll have a full analysis of Team USA, along with the rest of the provisional rosters, when they're all announced at 4 PM today. We already drew up what a dream roster for the Dominican Republic would look like, and it'll be interesting to see how that roster resembles the actual one that's announced today.
