As more information continues to come out regarding the upcoming 2023 World Baseball Classic, it is appearing more and more to be a very star-studded event that will be coming up.
After a previous report that the White Sox will be playing Team Colombia during their Spring Training schedule, this afternoon, Francys Romero of MLB.com reported that Yoan Moncada and Luis Robert will be joining the Cuban National Team on its initial 50-man roster for the WBC. This would be the first time either player played in the event.
Both Moncada and Robert have played internationally as part of the Cuban National Series, but will now get to represent their country on a larger scale. Both players will be looking to bounce back from up-and-down 2022 campaigns with the White Sox. Robert hit .284/.319/.426 with the club this season but battled with a wrist injury that really hampered his season down the stretch. Moncada was hampered by injury/inconsistency of his own, hitting just .212/.273/.353 in a season he would like to forget.
With this World Baseball Classic, it appears that more and more players are starting to appear that had previously sat out. Team USA is going to be stacked with talents such as Mookie Betts, Pete Alonso, and Tim Anderson, while Moncada and Robert will join many of their fellow countrymen in playing for the overseas teams.
While it is obviously not official that either player will officially be a part of the roster, it is exciting to get to see some White Sox players potentially play in the World Baseball Classic. At the very least, we will get to see TA7 on Team USA’s roster – and hopefully, Moncada and Robert are a sign of more to come before the exciting event.
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No he is not. The FCB Cuban baseball federation only said that if you left the team during a competition you wouldn’t be eligible to play. Both Robert and Moncada as well as Abreu left Cuba either by plane or by boat but they did not leave while in a tournament.
Luis is Ineligible to play for team cuba as he is a defector
Does anyone really care what ?Yoan Moncada does