19 CARDINALS PLAYERS NAMED TO 2023 WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC ROSTERS
ST. LOUIS, Mo., February 10, 2023 – The St. Louis Cardinals announced, in conjunction with the unveiling of the final rosters last evening on MLB Network, that 19 players from the organization have been named to 2023 World Baseball Classic team rosters, the most of any Major League team.
The 19 players, 13 of which have played in the Major Leagues, will represent 11 of the 20 participating countries, including multiple representatives for Team USA, Colombia, Great Britain, Mexico, and Panama. Each team roster includes up to 30 active players, including at least 14 pitchers and two catchers. In addition, federations may identify a designated pool of up to eight additional pitchers who are eligible to participate in one or more consecutive rounds.
Thirteen players from the Cardinals 40-player roster will take part in the fifth edition of the World Baseball Classic including pitchers Génesis Cabrera (Dominican Republic), Giovanny Gallegos (Mexico), Miles Mikolas (United States), Andre Pallante (Italy), JoJo Romero (Mexico), Adam Wainwright (United States), and Guillermo Zuniga (Colombia); catcher Iván Herrera (Panama); infielders Nolan Arenado (United States), Tommy Edman (Korea), and Paul Goldschmidt (United States); and outfielders Lars Nootbaar (Japan) and Tyler O’Neill (Canada).
Six Cardinals minor leaguers have also been named to WBC rosters, including OF LJ Jones (Panama), RHP Joseph King (Great Britain), OF Matt Koperniak (Great Britain), INF Noah Mendlinger (Israel), OF Óscar Mercado (Colombia), and RHP Wilfredo Pereira (Panama).
Other roster selections of note include Lars Nootbaar, who becomes the first non-Japanese born player to be selected to play and represent Japan’s national team (eligible to play for Japan through his mother, who is of Japanese descent) and Tommy Edman, who becomes the first non-Korean native to play for the county (eligible to play for Korea through his mother, who was born in South Korea).
This will be the second World Baseball Classic experience for Nolan Arenado, Paul Goldschmidt, Giovanny Gallegos, Óscar Mercado, and Tyler O’Neill, each of whom participated for their respective countries in the most recent WBC competition in 2017. Arenado and Goldschmidt were both a part of the 2017 championship winning United States team, with Arenado starting at third base (2-for-5, two runs) in the American’s 8-0 win over Puerto Rico at Dodger Stadium.
The 2023 WBC will see the field of teams expand to 20 for the first time in the tournament’s history and will feature five-team pools in the first round for round-robin play. The top two teams in each of the four first round pools will advance to the quarterfinals, while the top two teams from each quarterfinal pool will advance to the Championship Round to be played on March 19-21.