WBC Update (9-8-12): South Africa releases it’s roster, and other updates

We have our first roster for the 2012 WBC qualifiers! South Africa’s roster can be found here, and includes eight players currently on affiliated Minor League rosters.

A Sept. 4 article from Baseball America brings some tidbits about other Minor Leaguers who will be active in the qualifiers, particularly of those who are eligible due to ancestry (i.e. parents or grandparents from a country). Michael Roth of the Angels (and formerly of South Carolina) will be allowed to pitch one game for the UK, for example, due to relatively recent English ancestry. Two players of Bahamian descent will also be playing for the British, due to the fact that that the Bahamas, which doesn’t have a team in the WBC, was a British colony at the time their grandparents were born. The Israelis, managed by Brad Ausmus, will be primarily made up of Jewish-American minor leaguers (as well as ex-MLB players like Gabe Kapler and Shawn Green, who will be acting as player-coaches), as well as three or four spots for actual Israelis. The Germans will have Max Kepler and German-American Donald Lutz. Tim Smith and Andrew Albers have confirmed they expect to play for Canada. The French will have some minor leaguers, but will primarily be made up of guys from the French domestic league. The Filipinos have confirmed that some Filipino-Americans will be on their team.

Meanwhile, in Japan, the search for a manager for Samurai Japan has begun, but due to the fact that the NPB is trying to make “National Team Manager” a full-time job, it’s unlikely that any active managers will go through with it. As for Japan’s roster? Well, Aoki is probably going to be in, but Kuroda might be out. Also, one Japanese service had a list of possible players, which Yakyu Baka translated. Yu Darvish is too focused on the current season to comment.