Twins in the WBC

February 25, 2009 06:28 am

— Twelve players from the Twins organization are on rosters for the World Baseball Classic. Only Joe Nathan is on Team USA. Justin Morneau and Jesse Crain, of course, are on Team Canada.

At one point there were 17 Twins on provisional rosters, the most in baseball, but some of them — such as Francisco Liriano and Jose Mijares — opted out. It's pretty easy to tell that the Mets have more players on Classic rosters than do the Twins. (Looks like half the Puerto Rico squad will be Mets. Actually, it's only six.)

It's kind of funny to see Nick Punto on Team Italy. As far as I can tell, Hein Robb has yet to throw a pitch in the minor leagues, but the Twins did sign him last year out of the European Baseball Academy — and I'm not sure I'd ever heard of that before Googling Robb's name — and there he is, ready to pitch for the RSA in a pool against Cuba, Mexico and Australia. (I'm confident South Africa isn't advancing.)

I see that A.J .Pierzynski isn't on Team USA after all. Ozzie Guillen was joking recently that if AJ's catching for the US, the US will be out of the tourney early, that A.J. just wanted to spend a couple days in Florida. But Team USA will have Brian McCann (Braves) and Chris Iannetta (Rockies) as its catchers. I think I'd prefer Pierzynski to Iannetta.

Here's Team USA's roster.

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