One of the last two qualifying tournaments for the baseball competition for the delayed but not yet cancelled 2020 Tokyo Olympics started today in Florida. The Americas Qualifier pits the National squads for Canada, Columbia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, the United States and Venezuela against each other for either a spot in Tokyo (for the tournament winner) or a spot in the final qualifier later this month in Mexico (for the second and third place teams). Well, the National squads of players who aren't on any MLB team's 40 man rosters right now.
There's a handful of current and former NPB players on the team rosters - I've found 16 players on the Canadian, Cuban, Dominican and American teams. Actually to be completely honest, I may have found 17 players. The Cuban roster lists a player named Yadir Drake. There was a Yadir Drake who played for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters in 2016 but I'm not sure they're the same guy. The Drake who played for the Fighters defected from Cuba in 2011 and spent a couple years in the Dodgers organization. I was not aware of any defectors being allowed to play for the Cuban National Team but maybe things have changed. In any event, I don't have any cards of Drake with the Fighters (the only one I'm aware of is a Home Run Sausage card) so I can't show any cards of him here anyway.
UPDATE 6/1/21 - Missed Cuban pitcher Yariel Rodriquez who's a member of the Chunichi Dragons, although I don't have any cards of him either.
It would not surprise me if I missed someone. Here are the 16 players I found and have cards for:
Canada
Andrew Albers - Buffaloes 2018-20
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| 2019 Epoch NPB #114 |
Chris Leroux - Swallows 2013
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| 2013 Bandai Owners League 04 #055 |
Scott Mathieson - Giants 2012-19
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| 2015 BBM 2nd Version #484 |
Dustin Molleken - Fighters 2012-13
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| 2012 BBM Nippon Series #S46 |
Cuba
Fredrich Cepeda - Giants 2014-15
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| 2014 BBM Giants #G057 |
Alfredo Despaigne - Marines 2014-16, Hawks 2017-present
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| 2017 Calbee #084 |
Raidel Martinez - Dragons 2018-present
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| 2018 BBM Dragons #D32 |
Livan Moinelo - Hawks 2017-present
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| 2018 Hawks 80th Anniversary Celebration #03 |
Roel Santos - Marines 2017
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| 2017 BBM Genesis #027 |
Dominican Republic
Juan Francisco - Giants 2015
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| 2015 BBM Giants #G47 |
Radhames Liz - Eagles 2016
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| 2016 BBM Eagles #E23 |
Roman Mendez - Tigers 2017
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| 2017 Epoch Tigers #06 (Variant 1) |
Enny Romero - Dragons 2019
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2019 BBM Dragons #D31
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Raul Valdes - Dragons 2015-17
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| 2017 BBM 1st Version #305 |
United States
Brandon Dickson - Buffaloes 2013-2020
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| 2013 BBM 1st Version #306 |
DJ Johnson - 2020 Carp, 2020 Eagles
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| 2020 Epoch Carp Rookies & Stars #12 |
3 comments:
Yadir Drake is the same Yadir Drake who played in Cuba. He repatriated and Cuba began using such players in the 2019 Premier 12. See my recent bio of Drake at https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Yadir_Drake for more details. I don't know if it makes sense to update this page or wait till the 2023 WBC cards page (I'm assuming you'll do one) as he's with Cuba for that event.
Thanks for letting me know! It looks like the Cuban team this year has a handful of defectors on it - I didn't realize they were doing that now.
And I hadn't really thought about it but yeah, I'll probably be doing a post like this for the WBC teams.
From 2019-2022, players had to be repatriated to represent Cuba. The 2023 WBC is the first event where they are using players who never were repatriated.
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