Manager Omar López reported that the 30-player roster from Venezuela for the World Baseball Classic (WBC) will be announced on February 7, because that is the deadline established by Major League Baseball ( MLB), organizer of the universal competition, to form the templates.
“Originally, and by order of MLB, we had to reduce the preselection roster from 50 to 35 on January 6, but that did not happen because they extended the time to deliver the final payroll,” López explained during an interview granted this Thursday to a private television medium before the start of the clash between the Leones del Caracas and Navegantes del Magallanes at the José Bernardo Pérez Stadium in the city of Valencia.
In addition, he revealed that “they are still analyzing whether they have 15 position baseball players and 15 pitchers or, failing that, 16 pitchers and 14 field players. It is a decision that we will make when we know who will be willing to play in such an important event”.
In the plans of the native pilot, who in the MLB is one of the coaches of the current champion Houston Astros, is the presence of the outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr., who played with the Tiburones de La Guaira in the LVBP 2022-2023 season and in the Majors he is a figure of the Atlanta Braves.
He hopes that Acuña Jr. does not present any type of physical problems so that he can uniform himself with the Venezuelan team.
It should be noted that Venezuela is in Group D, along with Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Israel and Nicaragua. The matches of that key will take place in March at LoanDepot Park in Miami, Florida, United States.
Finally, López called on the fans to support Venezuela during the WBC that will take place from March 8 to 21 and in which the group’s goal will be to win the title.
Source: LVBP
VTV /CP
