WBC final four countries 2012 MBL players.

With team USA eliminated last night the World Baseball Classic (WBC) has teams these four teams remaining:
- Dominican Republic
- Japan
- Puerto Rico
- Kingdom of the Netherlands

Obviously more front line pitching could have changed things for all the teams.  Team USA was missing Justin Verlander and Clayton Kershaw. Ryan Braun, born in California, was in the USA outfield but so was Giancarlo Stanton, born in Panama and eligible for team Panama. It's a tangled web.

I was curious what 2012 Major Baseball League (MBL) players were born in the final four countries. Click this link to view the names.

Wow. Domincan Republic had 128 players. Most prominent among the missing was Albert Pujols.

Japan had 16, including missing players outfielder Ichiro Suzuki and pitchers Yu Darvish and Hiroki Kuroda.

Puerto Rico had 15 with no notables missing from the team.

Kingdom of the Netherlands:

The four parts of the Kingdom – Aruba, Curaçao, the Netherlands, and Sint Maarten ... 10 October 2010...  the Netherlands Antilles were dissolved and Curaçao and Sint Maarten became constituent countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, obtaining the same status as Aruba which seceded from the Netherlands Antilles in 1986.

The Lahman database, which I am using for this data lists these birth countries among the 59 countries for players all time:  Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles, Aruba, Curacao.  I used those four in my query for 2012 MBL players from the Kingdom of the Netherlands.  I found these eight players:

FirstOfnameFirst	FirstOfnameLast	FirstOfweight	FirstOfheight	FirstOfbats	FirstOfthrows	FirstOfteamID	FirstOfPOS
Roger	Bernadina	200	74	L	L	WAS	CF
Didi	Gregorius	185	73	L	R	CIN	SS
Kenley	Jansen	220	78	B	R	LAN	P
Andruw	Jones	230	73	R	R	NYA	LF
Jair	Jurrjens	200	73	R	R	ATL	P
Jurickson	Profar	165	72	B	R	TEX	2B
Andrelton	Simmons	170	74	R	R	ATL	SS
Rick	VandenHurk	215	77	R	R	PIT	P

Only Gregorius and VandenHurk are from the Netherlands.  Jurickson Profar is a well regarded young player and he is from Curacao as are Jones and Simmons.  The others are simply listed as born in Netherlands Antilles.

Kingdom of the Netherlands seems to be the one team really doing it with mirrors.