2013 World Baseball Classic Draw and Players

[Omar]

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—
Marlins Park will host Pool 2 of the World Baseball Classic next March 12-16. Monday, the four first-round pools were announced.

The winners and runner-ups from pools C and D will advance to the Marlins Park tournament. The pool C participants: Dominican Republilc, Puerto Rico, Spain and Venezuela. In pool D: the United States, Canada, Italy and Mexico.

Pool A features Brazil, China, Cuba and Japan. In Pool B: Australia, Chinese Taipei, Korea and the Netherlands. The winners and runners-up from those brackets advance to Pool 1 play in Tokyo March 8-12.

Team USA manager Joe Torre on Monday said he's spoken with some managers and general managers about certain players. It's unclear whether he will want Giancarlo Stanton on his roster. Provisional 28-man rosters for all teams will be announced in mid-January.

Sun-Sentinel

Pool A
Brazil
Cuba
China
Japan

Pool B
Australia
Taiwan
Korea
The Netherlands

Pool C*
Dominican Republic
Puerto Rico
Spain
Venezuela

Pool D*
Canada
Italy
Mexico
United States

*- top two from each pool will play in Miami

A really good team will be going home early from Pool C
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Just came across the wire (via ESPN Scorecenter app):

Joe Mauer and David Wright are the first two players announced to be on the US squad
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Per ESPN Scorecenter app, Miguel Cabrera and Pablo Sandoval will represent Venezuela

[Chewford]

Did whoever designed pool A bother to check that it takes like 10,000 hours to fly from Brazil to Japan or China?

[HUGG]

I feel like you're exaggerating.

Stanton's gonna play in this and fake an injury and sit out the whole year.

[Chewford]

The flight time is 24 hours from Rio to Tokyo. That's like an entire day, brah. When you take you the return flight into effect, that's over 0.5% of the whole year spent on the airplane.

[Omar]

Makes you wonder why they didn't send Italy there

[Party]

Damn no Cuba-USA in Miami. That would be epic.

[Omar]

It seems like they bend over backwards to ensure that doesn't happen

[HUGG]

probably at Cuba's request

[HUGG]

Adam Kilgore @AdamKilgoreWP
Bryce Harper will not play in the World Baseball Classic, his agent Scott Boras says.

clown

[emkayseven]

Giancarlo has committed to Team USA

So now we know what's going to cause his annual April injury

[Fritz]

Hubris.

[Mainge]

Will Miami even let him play?

[Erick]

Beinfest already said yes.

[Chewford]

If Stanton gets hurt our season is ruined.

Ruined!

[emkayseven]

"Maybe he should get injured, then we wouldn't have to pay him as much olololol"

I'm almost positive if I go to Idiot Town someone has said something along these lines