Andrew McCutchen is on Team USA’s World Baseball Classic roster. In light of his impending position change, where will he play?
Five players on the Pirates 40-man roster and four more minor leaguers made WBC final rosters, which were announced Wednesday evening. The WBC, which began in 2006 and is in its fourth iteration, begins pool play March 6 and ends with the championship game in Dodger Stadium March 22.
Other outfielders on Team USA include left fielder Christian Yelich, center fielder Adam Jones and right fielder Giancarlo Stanton. McCutchen, a center fielder his entire career, will play right for the Pirates this season, so it will be interesting to see where manager Jim Leyland uses him.
McCutchen’s fellow outfielders, Starling Marte and Gregory Polanco, are both on the roster for the Dominican Republic, which won the WBC in 2013. Catcher Francisco Cervelli will play for Italy.
Ivan Nova is also on the Dominican roster — sort of. He is a member of the designated pitcher pool, a new wrinkle designed to prevent pitchers from working too much during spring training, when they are usually still easing into their throwing programs. Each team can designate up to 10 such pitchers, and they must have at least one but no more than two on the roster for each round or else they lose the right to use the pool for the rest of the tournament.
The team can replace pitchers who are part of the pool with other such pitchers as they advance. Nova will report to camp with the Pirates, which for pitchers and catchers begins Tuesday, but could be summoned if the Dominican Republic advances. This sets up an interesting showdown with pitching coach Ray Searage.
“I am not one of the guys that is in favor of the WBC,” Searage told MLB Network Radio last month. “And the reason being, I’ve seen it over the years before on guys cutting short their rest periods for the winter and their workout routines and speeding it up.
“I think it’s great for baseball. I really do. It’s like that Catch-22 thing, you’re danged if you do and danged if you don’t. If [any] of my pitchers asked me, I’d say no.”
Luis Escobar, a 20-year-old righty who had a 2.93 ERA for low-A West Virginia last season, is in Colombia’s designated pitcher pool. So is Jared Lakind, a 24-year-old lefty who will pitch for Israel, and Sam Street, who made Australia’s roster.
Jameson Taillon pitched for Canada in the 2013 WBC but will not participate this season. He is one of 22 Pirates to participate in either the qualifying rounds or the tournament itself since its inception in 2006. Only four of them — Taillon, Lakind, Gift Ngoepe and Kyle Simmons — remain in the organization.
Minor leaguer Eric Wood, a 24-year-old third baseman who hit 16 home runs for Altoona last season, will play for Canada. Wood and Lakind received invitations to major league spring training.
Bill Brink: bbrink@post-gazette.com and Twitter @BrinkPG.
First Published: February 9, 2017, 12:33 a.m.