wbc

New Dodgers closer Edwin Díaz will pitch for Puerto in the World Baseball Classic in March, it was announced Monday.

Díaz, who signed a three-year, $69-million contract in December as the most sough-after reliever in free agency, pitched for Puerto Rico in the 2023 WBC but sufferd a right patellar tendon tear while celebrating a win over the Dominican Republic that pushed the team into the quarterfinals. He missed the entire 2023 MLB season as a result.

His announcement comes days after it was revealed Dodgers teammate Shohei Ohtani will not pitch in the WBC in order to focus on ramping up to pitch during the season without restrictions. Yoshinobu Yamamoto will pitch for Team Japan and catcher Will Smith and recently-retired left-hander Clayton Kershaw will be on the Team USA roster.

The 2023 World Baseball Classic ended with a matchup between then-Angels teammates, Shohei Ohtani on the mound against Mike Trout. In a showdown between two MVPs, Ohtani struck out Trout on a 3-2 slider, giving Japan its third WBC championship.

There will not be similar dramatics for this edition. During DodgersFest on Saturday, manager Dave Roberts cleared up one key question heading into spring training and the tournament.

“[Ohtani’s] not gonna pitch in the WBC, but he will be ramping up his arm to get ready for the season,” he said, adding that the player made the call.

“I wasn’t surprised,” Roberts said. “I can’t even say I was relieved. Understanding what he did last year, understanding what he had to go through, to then how best to prepare himself for ’26 to do both, it just seemed like the right decision.”

Ohtani said in November he would participate in the WBC but did not signal at the time whether he would pitch. When Team Japan’s roster was announced Monday, manager Hirokazu Ibata did not say if Ohtani would pitch, only saying they would get a better sense in spring training.

While speaking with reporters before Roberts, Ohtani said he wasn’t sure if he would pitch during the tournament.

“In terms of the World Baseball Classic, I just have to see how my body feels, continue to feel the progression and see what happens so I’m gonna be fully prepared as a DH,” he said.

The expectation going into the season had been he would be able to pitch without restrictions from the start for the Dodgers.

“I’m not going to manage him differently as far as each outing,” Roberts said. “There’s certainly going to be extra time, it’s not a five-day, six-day rotation. So there’s going to be rest in between. But outside of that, it’s not going to be the two-inning, three-inning [start], he’s just going to be used as a normal pitcher.”

In the 2023 WBC, Ohtani won tournament most valuable player with a .435 batting average and 1.86 ERA, helping Japan to the title. Five months later, Ohtani was pulled from a start at Angel Stadium against the Cincinnati Reds for what ultimately was revealed to be a torn UCL.

Ohtani had his second career Tommy John surgery in September and did not return to pitching until last June with the Dodgers.

During his first year on the mound for the Dodgers, Ohtani finished the regular season with a 2.87 ERA in 47 innings. In the playoffs, Ohtani posted a 4.43 earned run average in 20.1 innings over four starts — including one in Game 4 of the NLCS in which he struck out 10 batters while hitting three home runs, a performance Roberts called “probably the greatest postseason performance of all time” and earned him the series MVP.

MLB players like Ohtani and Dodgers right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto are expected to join Team Japan for exhibition games on March 2. Japan will open WBC play on March 6 against Taiwan.

Dodgers right-hander Roki Sasaki, who will be returning to the starting rotation after missing most of last year’s regular season because of a shoulder injury, said on Saturday that the Dodgers made him unavailable for the WBC. Sasaki was on Team Japan in 2023, starting two games — including a dramatic semifinal win over Mexico.

Miguel Rojas is the latest Dodger to withdraw from consideration for the World Baseball Classic, joining Teoscar Hernández, Andy Pages, Andy Ibáñez and perhaps other players. MLB Network will reveal all 20 team rosters Thursday at 4 p.m. PT.

Rojas, who turns 37 next month, will not represent his native Venezuela because of difficulty obtaining insurance. The versatile World Series star expressed regret that he cannot play in an Instagram story that included a photo of himself with the Venezuelan flag draped over his shoulders.

“Today I am very sad,” he wrote in Spanish. “A real pity to not be able to represent my country and wear that flag on my chest. On this occasion, age wasn’t just a number.”

Insurance was required to guarantee his $5.5-million salary in case he missed Dodgers games because of injuries incurred during the WBC, which will take place March 5-17 in Tokyo, Miami, Houston and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Rojas’ situation is similar to that of Clayton Kershaw ahead of the 2023 WBC. The pitcher was disappointed that he couldn’t play for Team USA because his injury history made obtaining insurance impossible. The Dodgers declined to waive his insurance requirement and assume financial risk in case Kershaw got hurt during the tournament.

“I’m frustrated,” Kershaw said at the time. “They should make it easy for guys that want to play to play.”

Insurance coverage protects teams from having to pay a player for time missed because of an injury stemming from the WBC, which requires participants to undergo entrance and exit physicals to document injury information.

Players can be deemed uninsurable for several reasons, a source told The Times in 2023. Included are players who finished the previous season on the injured list or spent considerable time on the injured list. Also uninsurable are players diagnosed with a “chronic condition.”

Rojas, who has said this will be his last major league season as a player, has sustained a succession of lower-body injuries in recent years. The 12-year veteran utility infielder began his career with the Dodgers in 2014 then played for the Miami Marlins for eight years before rejoining the Dodgers in 2023.

He will always be remembered by Dodgers fans for his game-tying home run in the ninth inning of Game 7 of the 2025 World Series against the Toronto Blue Jays. The baseball Rojas struck sold for $156,000 at auction.

This will mark the second WBC in a row that Rojas has missed. He was on Venezuela’s 2023 roster but withdrew after fellow infielder Gavin Lux tore his ACL during spring training, increasing Rojas’ role with the Dodgers.

Hernández has elected not to play for the Dominican Republic while Pages and Ibáñez — who signed a one-year, $1.2-million contract with the Dodgers this offseason — won’t suit up for Cuba. It is unclear whether insurance concerns were factors in their decisions.

However, Houston Astros stars Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa were forced to withdraw because of their inability to obtain insurance. Altuve would have played for Venezuela and Correa for Puerto Rico.

Dodgers who plan to play in the WBC include World Series heroes Will Smith of Team USA and pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto of Team Japan. Shohei Ohtani announced in November that he would play for Japan, although the two-way superstar has not decided whether he will pitch.

Smith will be a teammate of Kershaw, who because he retired from the Dodgers doesn’t need insurance now to participate in the WBC. In fact, he’s gone from needing insurance to being insurance.

“I just want to be the insurance policy,” Kershaw told MLB Network. “If anybody needs a breather, or if they need me to pitch back-to-back-to-back, or if they don’t need me to pitch at all, I’m just there to be there. I just want to be a part of this group.

“I learned a long time ago, you just want to be a part of great things.”

Japan’s roster for the World Baseball Classic features familiar names, but one question lingers.

The Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto were among those named to Team Japan by manager Hirokazu Ibata on Monday at a news conference in Tokyo. Ohtani previously announced his intention to participate in the WBC in November, and Yamamoto was expected to take part despite a heavy workload in the Dodgers’ run to a second straight World Series championship.

Dodgers right-hander Roki Sasaki, who will be returning to the starting rotation after missing most of last year’s regular season because of a shoulder injury, was not selected. Sasaki was on Team Japan in 2023, starting two games — including a dramatic semifinal win over Mexico.

In his earlier announcement, Ohtani did not indicate whether he would pitch in the WBC and on Monday Ibata told reporters that the team will get a better sense once Ohtani reports to spring training next month.

In the 2023 WBC, Ohtani won tournament MVP with a .435 batting average and 1.86 pitching ERA, helping Japan to the title. He punctuated the event with his memorable strikeout of Mike Trout for the final out in the championship game.

Eight major leaguers were named to Team Japan’s WBC roster, including the Angels left-hander Yusei Kukuchi, Padres left-hander Yuki Matsui, Blue Jays infielder Kazuma Okamoto, White Sox infielder Munetaka Murakami, Cubs outfielder Seiya Suzuki and right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano, currently a free agent who pitched for the Baltimore Orioles last year.

MLB players are expected to join Team Japan for exhibition games on March 2. Japan will open WBC play on March 6 against Taiwan.