Not long ago, we caught word that Grady Sizemore would be heading to the World Baseball Classic to man the outfield. Soon thereafter, we praised Cy Young-winning Cliff Lee for opting to train with the Indians this spring, instead of partaking in the festivities.
If you are in the camp that prefers Lee’s decision over that of Sizemore, you may want to stop reading here.
The 2009 World Baseball Classic may feature 14 members of the Cleveland Indians as they take the field during the month of March. Of those 14, eight members would in fact be from the 40-man roster and they would be featured on a handful of different teams.
The 16-team event kicks off on March 5, and the first members of the Tribe that will take the field will be right-fielder (and my main man) Shin-Soo Choo, who will represent Korea, and (my not-even-close to main man) Masa Kobayashi, who will represent his home country of Japan.
Others that are currently rostered among the WBC elite are Mark DeRosa (USA), Jhonny Peralta, Fausto Carmona, Rafael Perez (Dominican Republic), and Rafael Betancourt (Venezuela). Rounding out the list are minor leaguers Cirilo Cumberbatch, Damaso Espino, Paolo Espino (Panama), Chen-Chang Lee, Sung-Wei Tseng (Chinese Taipei), and Nick Weglarz (Canada). Weglarz is pretty high up on the prospect list, and may as well be considered a part of the eight that are on the big league squad.
Of these players, my biggest gripe is with Kobayashi, whom hit a huge wall in the second half of the 2008 season.
Pre-All Star game, Kobayashi was featured in 42 games, throwing 44.1 innings. His ERA and WHIP were 3.05 and 1.15 respectively. After the mid-summer classic, Kobayashi threw 11.1 innings in 15 games, and had an ERA of 10.32 with a WHIP of 2.47. Opponents hit .526 off of Kobayashi in the month of August! If anyone could use the training instead of innings pitched, its Masa Kobayashi.
And if you’re wondering about Shin-Soo Choo’s exemption from the military, the World Baseball Classic does in fact not count towards this obligation. Only the Olympics or Asian Games would qualify for the possible exemption, but Choo does not seem too concerned.
“The last time I played with my country’s flag on my chest, I was in high school,” said Choo, at Progressive Field on Monday for the start of the Indians’ press tour. “I’ve missed it a lot. I have a lot of friends on the Korean team in the WBC. [...] I worry about my military obligation, but it’s secondary on my mind.”
If I was responsible for a team that was hit with a handful of injuries last season, I am not sure I would be as supportive of my players missing a portion of spring training. Let’s just hope that this doesn’t come back to haunt us.
Author: Scott
Scott is a co-founder/editor of Waiting For Next Year who resides in Cleveland, Ohio. Feel free to follow him on Twitter or email him at scott@waitingfornextyear.com.Scott has written 1701 articles for Waiting for Next Year.
I don’t want ANY of our pitchers playing, to be honest. The hitters, not as bad. But pitchers should not be out there throwing in game situations with game intensity during a time period where they are usually working to stretch out their arms and try to polish up their command/stuff.
But, as we’ve documented, I’m selfish like that.
Yeah, I don’t like the idea of any of our major-league level talent playing in this thing…
I actually don’t mind it, obviously I wouldn’t want any type of injury. But, if these guys are only going out to itch 1 or 2 innings and the hitters are playing half a game then I think that’s acceptable. It could be a good experience in the long run…. I mean LBJ did lead the U.S. to the gold this summer.
Great! Thanks for ensuring the Indians will get off to a slow start, WBC.
I’m with you on being cranky about Kobayashi. Then again, we’ve retooled our relief corps such that we shouldn’t need him to pitch as near as much as we used him last season.
[...] little while back, we expressed some concern regarding the amount of players on the Indians roster that were slated to partake in the upcoming [...]