Luis Cessa, Alexis Díaz among Reds to participate in World Baseball Classic

The 2023 edition of the World Baseball Classic is set to begin in March, and tonight brought the official unveiling of the respective rosters for the participants. While it’s little surprise that none of the Cincinnati Reds offensive players will be representing anyone anywhere, it was widely expected that we’d see at least a few of their arms representing their homes.

That’s the case, as it turns out, as each of Alexis Díaz, Fernando Cruz, and Luis Cessa will be available to toe the rubber - the first two for Puerto Rico, and the latter for his home country of Mexico. The Reds themselves helped relay the news on Twitter.

Díaz and Cruz are expected to open the 2023 Major League Baseball season as cogs in the Cincinnati bullpen, while Cessa’s role is still yet to be defined - he’s been a reliever for most of his career but got starts down the stretch in 2022 when the rest of the Reds staff was decimated. It will therefore be interesting to see how he’s used for Mexico’s WBC team given that the tournament will take place when he’d otherwise potentially be prepping for the MLB regular season.

The rest of the rosters are currently being announced, and you can track them in a number of places from Sportsnet to MLB.com.

** UPDATE **

It appears another pair of Reds bullpen candidates will be participating in the WBC, too.

The Reds have relayed that Ian Gibaut will pitch for Great Britain, doing so since his father was born in the Bailiwick of Jersey. Cool!

Lefty Reiver Sanmartin will pitch for Colombia, as the Reds also relayed.

In addition to those players off the big league roster who are set to play in the WBC, 11 minor leaguers within the Reds system will be there, too.