Provisional rosters for the World Baseball Classic were announced yesterday, and 13 players from the Detroit Tigers organization will participate. The key word, however, is "provisional," as the rosters need to be trimmed from 45 to 28, so some of these players might not make the cut. But I'm guessing the Tigers' American, Venezuelan, and Dominican contingents will be pretty safe.
Here are the 13 Tigers, as reported by Jason Beck:
USA:
Curtis Granderson, OF
Justin Verlander, P
Venezuela:
Carlos Guillen, OF
Magglio Ordonez, OF
Miguel Cabrera, IF
Armando Galarraga, P
Dominican Republic:
Placido Polanco, IF
Fernando Rodney, P
Canada:
Cale Iorg, IF
Max St. Pierre, C
Chinese Taipei:
Fu-Te Ni, P
Australia:
Andrew Graham, C
Brendan Wise, P
You can see each of the WBC rosters here, and Jayson Stark takes a closer look at each squad at ESPN.com.
Meanwhile, something of a personal dilemma occurred to me yesterday, as I was beginning to consider potential road trips and vacations for the year. If you could only take one trip to Toronto this spring, would you prefer to attend the WBC games in Toronto? (Realistically, probably just the first-round USA vs. Canada match-up. Although that Venezuela team would be worth watching, as well.) Or one game of the season-opening series between the Tigers and Blue Jays?