Who To Root for in the World Baseball Classic? Pool A

The World Baseball Classic is officially back! We’re been running preview content for the last two weeks, but now that the tournament is actually underway, you’ve got to pick a team to root for. You may even have to pick one team from each of the four pools. To help you choose a your favorite, I’ll be offering a reason to cheer for each of the 20 teams in the field. We started with Pool C and Pool D yesterday. Pool B will run later today.

Canada

The big reason to root for Canada is that this might finally be the year the team breaks through and makes it to the knockout round. With Puerto Rico at the top, Pool A is by no means a cakewalk, but the second spot doesn’t have a hands-down favorite. Baseball America’s power rankings have Canada ranked seventh in the tournament, with Cuba ninth, Colombia 14th, and Panama 16th. Canada’s outfield is going to be really fun. Let’s break it down.

Right Field: When healthy, Tyler O’Neill is a human mountain who hits majestic dingers. (When not healthy, he’s still a human mountain, just without the dingers.) O’Neill had an ugly 2025 season, getting into just 54 games for the Orioles (due to not healthy) and running a wRC+ of 93. However, the underlying numbers weren’t bad at all. He posted a paltry .218 BABIP and a robust .360 xwOBA, the second-highest mark of his career. The small sample size is messing with us here. O’Neill is just one year removed from a 2024 season in which he launched 31 home runs with a 133 wRC+, and he’s raked in spring training. He also batted .615 in the 2023 WBC. Watch out.

Center Field: O’Neill was once a plus defender, but age and injuries have slowed him down, and his numbers in recent years aren’t great. Luckily, Denzel Clarke can cover for him. Denzel Clarke can cover everything. The A’s center fielder has a weak bat, but you could make a strong argument that he was the best defensive outfielder in baseball last year. According to Statcast, his 11 fielding runs ranked 30th among all outfielders, even though his 383 2/3 innings played ranked 123rd. On a per-inning basis, no one could touch him.

Left Field: We’ve got more power in the corners. Marlins prospect Owen Caissie just came in at 62 on our Top 100 Prospects list. Last year with the Cubs, he struck out a whopping 41% of the time in his brief major league debut, but he also launched 22 homers in 99 games at Triple-A Iowa. The 23-year-old Caissie is going to make loud contact or whiff big. Either way, it’ll be fun to watch. Should we finish with some gratuitous Denzel Clarke highlights? Of course we should.

Colombia

If you want to root for the team that’s most likely to have a pitcher take a deep breath and say, “I’m getting too old for this sh*t,” then Colombia is your squad. The team features the starting pitching duo of Jose Quintana and Julio Teheran. The 37-year-old Quintana made his major league debut in 2012, and he’ll be suiting up for the Rockies this season. Teheran is a mere 35, but he debuted for the Braves in 2011 at the tender age of 20. He spent 2025 in the Mexican League and is currently a free agent. If he pitches well, he could earn one last ride. Together, Quintana and Teheran have played for 11 different major league teams and made more than 600 major league starts. Their backs must be killing them.

Neither pitcher appeared in the 2023 WBC, but both pitched brilliantly in 2017, giving up one run apiece in their respective starts. Teheran won his, but Quintana earned a no-decision as Colombia went on to lose in extra innings. This team also has a real shot here. Colombia will definitely be relying on experience more than youth – I didn’t even mention the 38-year-old Donovan Solano – but Pool A is pretty wide open, and the team allowed just one run during its three-game qualifiers. How time flies.

Cuba

Once again, it’s all about the arms. Cuba is without several prominent major leaguers, but the roster may well have enough pitching to make it work anyway. We have to start with the 30-year-old Livan Moinelo, who plays in Japan for the SoftBank Hawks. The southpaw debuted in Japan in 2018, and he looked fine in his first season. Then he turned into one of the best pitchers in the league. Pitching in relief, he ran a 1.32 ERA and a 1.80 FIP from 2019 to 2023. That’s five years, and his ERA never rose above 1.69! In 2023, he put up a 0.98 ERA despite an elbow issue and a hip injury that required surgery after the season. Naturally, at that point, SoftBank decided to turn him into a starter. Risky move with a guy who’s coming off surgery and just put up a sub-one ERA, right? Don’t worry. Over the past two years as a starter, Moinelo is 23-8 with a combined ERA of 1.67. He’s fun to watch, too. He’s listed at just 5-foot-10 and 154 pounds. He features a four-pitch mix with a big, loopy curveball he’s not afraid to locate in the strike zone and a sneaky mid-90s fastball that seems to jump out of his hand.

If that’s not enough, can I interest you in Raidel Martínez, who spent the first 10 years of his career with the Chunichi Dragons and is now with the Yomiuri Giants? Martínez is in some ways the opposite of Moinelo. He’s a lanky right-handed closer with a career 1.99 ERA in NPB. The last time he ran an ERA above 2.00 was 2021. In 2023, he allowed just two runs in 48 appearances. He posted a 0.39 ERA. Over the past two years, he has a combined 89 saves. Maybe he should try starting.

Last, you might be familiar with Yariel Rodríguez, who put up a 3.08 ERA across 66 appearances for the Blue Jays last year. Thanks to an ugly walk rate, his peripherals weren’t as rosy, and he got lit up in the playoffs. Still his fastball touches the upper 90s.

Panama

On Wednesday, MLB.com published an article titled “World Baseball Classic partners with more than 150 brands from around the world.” Did you know that there was an entity called World Baseball Classic, Inc.? I’m betting you didn’t, because nothing kills the romance of a big worldwide sporting event like contemplating the filthy lucre that makes the whole thing run. And yet, right there on MLB.com, nestled among stories about thrilling prospects and grizzled managers and sibling connections, is a press release trumpeting the triumph of corporate synergy that is the WBC. What does this have to do with Panama? Well, I’m writing up different reasons to root for 20 different teams, and I figured with 150 different corporate partners around the world, at least one of them deserved to be rooted for. So I just picked one.

Congratulations, Panama. Sure, we will be cheering for old friends like Christian Bethancourt and Rubén Tejada and exciting prospects like Enrique Bradfield Jr., but mostly we will be cheering for your jersey sponsor, Caja de Ahorros, which is a bank.

Let’s go Caja de Ahorros! Who wants a checking account? Loans for everybody! Panama means business.

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico has one of the better rosters in the tournament, but it’s hard to talk about this team without talking about what might have been. The insurance providers for the WBC refused to insure at least eight different Puerto Rican players, including stars Carlos Correa, José Berríos, Victor Caratini, and Francisco Lindor, citing an increased injury risk. One imagines that the actuaries at the insurance companies threw a small, sad breakroom party with soda and mini cupcakes when they found out that Lindor had injured himself anyway. That all this happened right before the tournament started added insult to injury, and the team considered pulling out altogether. It’s not all that often that you get to combine two truly rewarding passions: rooting for a baseball team and heaping scorn on insurance companies, so you should really grab this opportunity while you can.

If you’re looking for a more positive reason to cheer for Puerto Rico, look no further than the catcher position. Without Caratini, Team Puerto Rico is running out 39-year-old Martín Maldonado and 35-year-old Christian Vázquez. These two share more than just a position, an advanced age, and a place of birth. They’re both no-bat catchers who don’t grade out well according to the advanced defensive metrics. They’re still playing regularly because wherever they go, their team believes they’re bringing the intangibles. It’s Nichols’ Law of Catcher Defense in action at a global scale, and Maldonado and Vázquez are playing their trade under manager Yadier Molina. Can vibes-based catching take Puerto Rico to a championship? Maybe, but only if you believe hard enough.