Although 18 players from the Dominican team objected to their participation in the upcoming World Baseball Classic, there is the hope of obtaining those permits through a series of steps that will exhaust them. Among them is the opinion of an independent doctor, whose idea will greatly weigh the final decisions.
This was stated by Nelson Cruz, the team’s general manager, and Juan Núñez, president of the Dominican Baseball Federation (Fedom), at the el caribe and CDN breakfast.
Cruz indicated that the idea of a doctor of this type is made to be able to evaluate the conditions in which a baseball player who is in the group of those who are currently prohibited from participating is found.
“As a federation, together with the MLB and the Major League Players Association, we are going to exhaust a process for an independent doctor to verify whether or not the player can play in the Classic,” Cruz said. Getting permission for a player to represent his country in an international tournament has always been the subject of discussion, especially in the Major Leagues.
“This situation affects the roster of any team,” Cruz said. “Within the rules there is that this team (the Major League Baseball) can ban any player, which may not necessarily be due to an injury, as in many cases usually happens,” he added.
Likewise, if a Major League Baseball organization has more than 12 players on its roster who want to participate in the World Classic, it can claim to prevent more from coming.
The new member of the San Diego Padres understands that there are procedures that teams impose on certain players, especially those who saw action throughout the season, a situation that leads them to place them within the line of extreme fatigue, which complicates their participation. In any type of competition, such as the Classic or in the autumn-winter baseball tournaments of the Caribbean.
“The part of the insurance that is being protected so that that player does not get injured in that event also influences here. If the player is injured, then the team doesn’t pay you, it’s the insurance that does. We see that as something common, because as soon as a player plays 160 games in one go, he is going to become extremely fatigued,” said the veteran player of 18 seasons in the Major Leagues.
Among the processes that would be exhausted before going to the independent doctor is, first, the player’s decision to participate in the Classic and then make an evaluation with the doctor to have a complete prognosis regarding the disposition shown by the player.
“Our idea is to be able to bring the best possible quality of players to the World Classic,” said the native of the municipality of Las Matas de Santa Cruz in Montecristi.
Cruz, during brief participation in the “Mañana Deportiva” program, which is broadcast Monday through Friday from 7 am to 9 am on CDN Radio, said that due to this situation, they had designed several plans with different levels, and that is why In the preliminary roster of 50 players they have included players who participated in the last autumn-winter championship, including Emilio Bonifacio and César Valdez, both from the Tigres del Licey, and Webster Rivas, from the Gigantes del Cibao, among others.
