Davis bows out, "El Titan" questionable for Mexico in WBC

One aspect of the World Baseball Classic that the event's critics rarely fail to bring up is that a nation's best baseball players are often made unavailable to represent their country in the WBC, either because their major league organization wants to withhold their services during spring training or because the player himself does not want to jeopardize his chances of making a big league roster if he's considered on the fringe.  Injuries are also a concern, of course, no matter what the MLB organizations or players have in mind.

Two of the expected power sources for Mexico's 2017 World Baseball Classic squad may end up being scratches next month for Pool D play in Guadalajara.  Oakland outfielder Khris Davis, who khrashed 42 homers for the A's last summer, has pulled out of the WBC altogether while Dodgers first baseman Adrian "El Titan" Gonzalez may have to sit out his fourth Classic after coming down with tendinitis in his right (non-throwing) elbow during winter training.

Davis, whose 42 roundtrippers helped him drive in 102 runs in 2016 after a slow start in which he was hitting just .222 with 5 homers on May 22 before picking up the pace the rest of the season.  The Cal State-Fullerton product, whose mother Sonia was born in Mexico before coming to the USA at age 4, expressed remorse at his withdrawal from the WBC.  "I'm not going to be able to do it due to some timing issues," the San Jose Mercury News quoted Davis as saying.  "I feel kind of overextended personally.  You take on a lot.  It's days away.  May main focus is this organization.  I feel this year I want to get off on the right foot this year..."

"I feel horrible about it.  I feel terrible.  At the same time, I have to be here."

On the other hand, Gonzalez' decision may be predicated on his physical fitness more than a desire to get off to a better start. The five-time All-Star first sacker, who hit .285 with 18 homers and 90 RBIs for Los Angeles last year, says he first noticed a twinge in his elbow two months ago.  "It's tennis elbow from jsut working out," Gonzalez tells MLB.com's Ken Gurnick, "too much hitting and too much boxing.  I felt it while working out in early December and it didn't seem like much, but it hasn't gone away."  Gonzalez has been shut down from swinging a bat for two weeks.  Although he's been one of the most durable first basemen in baseball, playing in at least 156 games in each of the past eleven years, the 34-year-old career .290 hitter (308 homers, 1,146 ribbies) may need to miss the WBC to continue resting his elbow after representing Mexico in 2006, 2009 and 2013.

Mexico manager Edgar Gonzalez, Adrian's brother and former teammate in both Mazatlan and San Diego as well as with the Verdes Grande, will have to adjust his lineup even before their first game.  Losing Davis left him with three outfielders on the roster: Chris Roberson, Jose Juan Aguilar and Alex Verdugo.  Efren Navarro, a former Angels first baseman who hit .275 with seven homers splitting 126 games between AAA Tacoma and Memphis last year, can play the outfield, but it's likely Gonzalez will replace Davis on the roster with a regular outfielder.

Replacing Adrian Gonzalez would prove an impossible task.  Although the aforementioned Navarro has MLB experience at first base, the call might go to the mountainous Japhet Amador, the 6'4" 330-pound El Gigante de Mulege.  Amador, the 2015 Mexican League MVP when he hit .346 with an LMB-topping 41 homers and 117 RBIs in 103 games, will be playing his second season in Japan in 2017 with the Rakuten Golden Eagles.  In an injury-nagged 2016 debut in the Pacific League, Amador hit .258 with nine homers and 19 RBIs in just 39 games.  The big fella is more nimble than one would expect and has made himself into a decent fielder at first base, but he doesn't compare to the four-time Gold Glove-winning Gonzalez.

Losing Gonzalez would mean more than losing Mexico's best ballplayer, as if that wouldn't be enough on a standalone basis.  For ten years, El Titan and Edgar helped form the heart and soul of the Verdes Grande lineup and clubhouse, so losing even one of them would leave a hole in the team that can't be quantified by hardware or sabermetrics.  However, there are 22 million rea$on$ why Adrian Gonzalez may have to beg off from playing in his fourth Classic and I can't blame him.

Mexican roster for WBC Pool D play in Guadalajara set

A 27-player active roster (with eight more in reserve) for Mexico's national baseball team has been set for next month's World Baseball Classic.  Manager Edgar Gonzalez will lead the Verdes Grande into battle in Pool D play against Puerto Rico, Venezuela and Italy from March 9 through 13 at Guadalajara's Estadio Charros, which will be expanded to 15,000 seats for the event.

Gonzalez, who was selected as the Mexican Pacific League's Manager of the Year last winter in his debut as a skipper for Mexicali, will have a team of MLB and Mexican League veterans with a decent mix of power and speed and a pitching staff loaded with hurlers who have big league experience.

Mexican National Team 2017 WBC roster
P (13) - Jorge De La Rosa, Yovanni Gallardo, Jaime Garcia, Geovani Gallegos, Miguel Angel Gonzalez, Vidal Nuno, Roberto Osuna, Oliver Perez, Sergio Romo, Fernando Salas, Jake Sanchez, Joakim Soria, Carlos Torres.
C (20) - Xorge Carrillo, Sebastian Valle.
IF (8) - Japhet Amador, Daniel Castro, Luis Alfonso Cruz, Adrian Gonzalez, Brandon Laird, Efren Navarro, Esteban Quiroz, Jose M. "Manny" Rodriguez.
OF (4) - Jose Juan Aguilar, Khris Davis, Chris Roberson, Alex Verdugo.
Reserves (8) - Miguel Aguilar, Andres Avila, Marco Estrada, Carlos Fisher, Rafael Martin, Mario Meza, Ivan Salas, Julio Cesar Urias.

The pitching staff combines starters with past MLB success like Yovanni Gallardo, Miguel Angel Gonzalez, Jorge De La Rosa and Jaime Garcia with a strong bullpen that includes Roberto Osuna, Joakim Soria and Sergio Romo (along with 2016-17 LMP Reliever of the Year Jake Sanchez, an A's farmhand).  One name missing from the list of 13 pitchers is the Dodgers' highly-touted lefty, 20-year-old Julio Urias, a Culiacan product that LA has developed slowly since his Class A Midwest League debut as a 16-year-old in 2013.  Urias is on the reserve list, as is Nats reliever Rafael Martin.  Conspicuous by their absence are right-hander Hector Velazquez and southpaw Danny Rodriguez, both of whom distinguished themselves in the Mexican Pacific League playoffs and recently-concluded Caribbean Series.

Mexico's catching situation is nowhere near as flush, with two career minor leaguers for Gonzalez to choose from.  Sebastian Valle is a former Phillies prospect who was dealt to the Mariners this winter.  Valle made national headlines in Mexico last week with his walkoff grand slam in the Caribbean Series, but his ten-year minor league career has been longer on potential than delivery.  A CS teammate of Valle's with Mexicali, Carrillo has been a six-year Mets farmhand with two cups of coffee at the AAA level.  Valle will likely be the starter, but this is not a Verdes Grande strong point.

The infield looks better.  Dodgers' five-time All-Star Adrian Gonzalez will serve as anchor at first base for his fourth WBC and first without brother Edgar playing alongside him.  Second base will be shared between Manny Rodriguez, a rocksteady veteran and career .307 hitter over 11 Mexican League seasons, and 5'7" Esteban Quiroz, who hit .335 for Quintana Roo last summer.  Things aren't as settled on the left side.  Daniel Castro, who split 2016 between MLB and AAA with the Braves, figures to start at shortstop but third base is up for grabs among Brandon Laird and Efren Navarro.  Quiroz could slide to third with Rodriguez taking permanent status at second.  Man-mountain Japhet Amador (all 6'4" and 330 pounds of him) figures to DH for Mexico after spending last year in Japan with the Rakuten Golden Eagles while Luis Alfonso Cruz, who's played three years in Japan, will plug any gaps in the middle infield.  When he's in a groove, Amador can go deep on anyone.

Mexico's outfield will include Khris Davis, who it 42 homers and drove in 102 runs for Oakland in 2016 after knocking out 49 longballs the two previous campaigns in Milwaukee.  Longtime followers of Mexican baseball will have no trouble recognizing Chris Roberson in center field.  A 37-year-old Oakland native and former Phils prospect, Robo made his winterball debut with Hermosillo in 2005 and has mostly played year-round south of the border since 2009 providing speed (he's lost little), extra-base power and some defense wherever he's gone.  Twenty-year-old Alex Verdugo has averaged .302 over three minor league seasons in the Dodgers system but is a little shaky with his glovework.  Juan Jose Aguilar is, like Roberson, an LMB veteran who lacks the latter's power but matches his speed and should be the best defensive outfielder on Mexico's roster.

Mexico has had to fight its way to a fourth consecutive appearance in the WBC after going winless in 2013 and being required to qualify to play in Guadalajara this year.  They did so last March by cruising through a qualifying round with wins over Germany, Nicaragua and the Czech Republic to earn a berth in Pool D while removing the "interim" from Gonzalez' managerial status.

BASEBALL MEXICO WINTER AWARD ANNOUNCEMENTS BEGIN MONDAY, FEB. 13

Mexico moves up to sixth in WBSC's global rankings; to play Padres, Diamondbacks before WBC

Mexico's star in international baseball continues to rise as the country's National Team has moved past Venezuela into sixth place in the latest World Baseball & Softball Confederation rankings ahead of next year's World Baseball Classic.

The WBSC is located in Lausanne, Switzerland and serves as the governing body for international baseball and fastpitch after the former International Baseball Federation (IBAF) and International Softball Federation (ISF) merged in 2013.  They also publish rankings for women's baseball, men's fastpitch and women's fastpitch.

The WBSC's final baseball rankings for 2016 show Japan maintaining first place with 5,699 points while the United States remained in second with 4,928 points.  South Korea moved up from fourth to third with 4,849 points to slip past Taiwan, who fell to fourth place at 4,261.  Cuba held onto their fifth-place ranking at 3,857 points, ahead of Mexico in sixth at 3,081.  The top ten is rounded out by Venezuela, Canada, The Netherlands and Italy.  In other WBSC rankings, Mexico's men's fastpitch team moved up one slot to 9th (New Zealand is first) while Mexico's women's fastpitch club vaulted four places to tenth (Japan remained on top of that list).  Mexico's women's baseball team is unranked.

Mexico, Venezuela and Italy will be joined by 12th-ranked Puerto Rico next March for World Baseball Classic Pool D play at Estadio Charros in Guadalajara in what may prove to be one of the most intriguing of the four WBC first-round groupings.  Prior to the March 9 Pool D opener between Mexico and Italy, the Grandes Verde will spend three days at the Peoria, Arizona spring training complex shared by the San Diego Padres and Seattle Mariners.  The stay will include a pair of exhibition games against MLB teams:  On Tuesday, March 7, Mexico will take on the Padres at 1:10PM Mountain time at Peoria Stadium, followed by a 1:10PM tilt on Wednesday, March 8 against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Salt Rivers Fields at the Talking Stick Resort in nearly Scottsdale before flying to Guadalajara for the WBC.

Mexican manager Edgar Gonzalez, who is currently helmsman of the Mexican Pacific League's Jalisco Charros in Guadalajara, is in the early stages of assembling his roster.  Brother Adrian Gonzalez (the Dodgers' five-time All-Star first baseman) has indicated he'll be playing in his fourth WBC, infielder Danny Espinosa (who was recently traded to the Angels after seven seasons with the Nationals) has committed and outfielder Khris Davis (whose mother is a Culiacan native) will patrol the outfield after swatting 42 homers with 102 RBIs for the A's last summer.  Mexico's pitching staff will include starter Jaime Garcia (who won 20 games for the Cardinals in 2015-16 before being dealt to the Braves earlier this month), Jays closer Roberto Osuna (36 saves in 2016), two-time Royals All-Star reliever Joakim Soria (203 career saves) and longtime MLB hurler Oliver Perez (69-86 over 14 seasons), who spent last season in the Nats bullpen.