{"id":245210,"date":"2025-12-10T08:12:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T12:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/?p=245210"},"modified":"2025-12-10T09:12:35","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T13:12:35","slug":"albert-pujols-readies-the-dr-team-for-the-world-baseball-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/2025\/12\/10\/albert-pujols-readies-the-dr-team-for-the-world-baseball-classic\/","title":{"rendered":"Albert Pujols readies the DR team for the World Baseball Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Let there be no doubt, Cooperstown Hall of Fame member Albert Pujols is calling the shots for the Dominican team in the World Baseball Classic, the global baseball event set for 5 to 17 March 2026. Japan is the defending champion. The DR won the title in 2013 and Pujols is putting his heart and soul to ensure the DR gets the championship this coming 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pujols has stated that the quality of Dominican players and the large number who want to make the team are his dilemma as he chooses the roster. \u201cIt\u2019s a good headache to have so many superstars. Each one of them will have their moment, a high point to help us win,\u201d Pujols has said, as reported by David Venn for MLB.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The DR team manager has mentioned Elly de la Cruz, Johan Rojas, Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr., Junior Caminero, Sandy Alc\u00e1ntara and Geraldo Perdomo as team members but has yet to announce his full roster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The top four teams from each pool in the 2023 World Baseball Classic advanced directly. These were Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Panama, Puerto Rico, South Korea, United States, Venezuela, Australia, Canada, Cuba, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Great Britain, Israel, and Italy. Qualifying tournaments held in 2025 added Nicaragua, Taiwan, Colombia and Brazil to make up the four pools or groups in the first round. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pool play rounds will be played in Miami, Florida; Houston, Texas; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Tokyo, Japan. The quarterfinals will be split between Miami and Houston, and the final round will be played in Miami.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Dominican Republic is in Group D and will first play in Miami against the Netherlands, Venezuela, Israel and Nicaragua. Of these teams, the Netherlands is the nemesis of the Dominican team. In 2009, the Netherlands defeated the DR 2-1 in 11 innings, impeding the DR did not make it out of the first round. That year, the DR team was loaded by MLB stars such as Robinson Can\u00f3, David Ortiz and Hanley Ram\u00edrez and was at the Classic opened the team to beat for the crown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Since the tournament began in 2006, only three teams have won the trophy. These are Japan (2006, 2009, 2023), the Dominican Republic (2013), and the United States (2017).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more:
World Baseball Classic 2026 <\/a>
Wikipedia <\/a>
Hoy <\/a>
MLB <\/a>
MLB <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

10 December 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let there be no doubt, Cooperstown Hall of Fame member Albert Pujols is calling the shots for the Dominican team in the World Baseball Classic, the global baseball event set for 5 to 17 March 2026. Japan is the defending champion. The DR won the title in 2013 and Pujols is putting his heart and … <\/p>\n

Read more\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[337,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245210"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245210"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":245272,"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245210\/revisions\/245272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}