A setback for Dutch baseball players. In the first round of the World Baseball Classic, which kicks off in Taiwan on March 8, the Kingdom of Netherlands team will miss two of the biggest names: pitchers Kenley Jansen and Pedro Strop.
Both are on the reserve list and baseball players can participate if they advance to the semifinals. For Jansen, this will be a new push: in 2017, he left the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Dutch team in preparation to pitch in the semifinals against Puerto Rico.
Permission
The World Baseball Classic is the only tournament in which American baseball professionals can participate. Then they need to get permission from their club.
This is not the case with Jansen. The 35-year-old shooter, three-time Major League All-Star and 2020 World Series winner, was briefed by his new club, the Boston Red Sox, that they wanted to see him during spring practice, what they call prep. New season in the big leagues.
Strop (37) won the World Series with the Chicago Cubs in 2016, keeping Dutch baseball players out of the World Baseball Classic final with the Dominican Republic ten years ago.
Strop can also play for the Netherlands with his trademark crooked baseball cap, thanks to his Curaçao father. And so his name was the biggest surprise in the pre-selection of national coach Hensley Meulens. There will be no performance for now. Strop was canceled for personal reasons.
big names
The 30-man roster was announced last night on MLB Network, Major League Baseball’s own television network. National manager Meulens still has access to some big names with major league experience like Xander Bogaerts, Didi Gregorius, Jonathan Schoop, Jurickson Profar and Andrelton Simmons.
Chadwick Tromp and Richie Palacios are poised to enter the world’s greatest baseball league, and Wladimir Balentien, Roger Bernadina, Shairon Martis and Josh Palacios are also making their way through the big leagues.
It has long been clear that Ozzie Albies, the last Dutch winner of the World Series (2021), was missing. Atlanta Braves second baseman recovers from foot injury.
By the end of next week, the Orange team will begin preparing for the WBC in Arizona. From March 8 to March 12, baseball players in Taiwan will play against Cuba, Panama, Taiwan and Italy in the group stage.
Groups 1 and 2 head to Tokyo for the quarterfinals. The winners will fly to Miami for the finals on March 19, 20 and 21.
Major league season kicks off in just over a week.
Source: NOS
I’m George Gonzalez, a professional journalist and author at The Nation View. With more than 5 years of experience in the field, I specialize in covering sports news for various print media outlets. My passion for writing has enabled me to craft stories that capture the attention of readers all over the world.
