Mariners in the WBC

by ~ January 19th, 2009 at 6:49 pm

16 members of the Seattle Mariners organization have found themselves on the provisional rosters for various World Baseball Classic teams, according to John Hickey.

Phillippe Aumont (Canada)*
Adrian Beltre (Dominican Republic)
Manuel Campos (Panama)*
Endy Chavez (Venezuela)
Greg Halman (Netherlands)
Felix Hernandez (Venezuela)
Cesar Jimenez (Venezuela)
Kenji Johjima (Japan)
Kuo-Hui Lo (Tawain)*
Alex Liddi (Italy)*
Jose Lopez (Venezuela)
Anthony Phillips (South Africa)*
Ryan Rowland-Smith (Australia)
Kalian Sams (Netherlands)*
Carlos Silva (Venezuela)
Ichiro Suzuki (Japan)

*Not on Seattle Mariners 40-man roster

The provisional rosters feature 45 ballplayers, and have to be cut down to 28 once play begins, so this list will shorten with time.

This list shows how truly international the Mariners are as no American players made the cut.

Can anyone think of any snubs?  I thought that Michael Saunders might be part of the Canadian provisional roster.

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  • Slurve

    Wow no camp invitation or WBC? Saunders is having bad luck all well maybe because of the surgery… But they said he’d be ready for ST…

  • section331

    How are the WBC players decided? Is it invitational?

  • Mr.Benton

    Silva actually made the Venezuelan team? wow!

  • Brandon

    I was reading that list and thinking venezuela was gonna be the team to beat…..and then i saw silva. LOL

  • http://bleedingblueandteal.com Jon Shields

    How are the WBC players decided? Is it invitational?

    It is invitational, and not all players want to play (which is on reason why they start out with so many players).

    RRS, for example, is still undecided whether or not he’ll play. He knows he’s going to have to battle for a starting rotation spot this spring, so he’s deciding whether he should represent his country or be in camp the whole time and try to gain an advantage.

  • section331

    Yeah, I knew it caused problems with Spring Training, but wasn’t sure exactly how. Do they usually base the invites on performance, sort of like the All-Stars (and I say “sort of” VERY loosely)?

  • http://bleedingblueandteal.com Jon Shields

    Well, obviously each country is going to try and get the absolute best players available. So in that sense, it is “sort of like the All-Stars.”

    Only problem is that teams like Australia, Italy, Netherlands etc don’t have as deep of a talent pool to choose from (obviously). A guy like Greg Halman is going to be one of the Netherlands best players (certainly the best player from a non-island), while he wouldn’t even gain consideration for the US, Dominican Republic or Venezuela.

  • section331

    I just meant that it wasn’t a popularity contest, like the All-Stars seems to have turned into (this last year, at least, I saw a lot of complaining regarding the method of All Star voting).
    Well, that’s cool, thanks for the info. :)

  • seatown27

    i just hope there is no injuries during this tournament. Especially to felix.

  • Adam The Lord

    I was surprised Wladimir Balentien didn’t make the Dutch team, I thought everyone was worrying about how he was gonna earn a spot on the M’s when he was gonna play in the tournament.