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WCL Victoria HabourCats

Four Former HarbourCats Highlight World Baseball Classic Rosters

February 10, 2023 - West Coast League (WCL)
Victoria HabourCats News Release


Victoria, BC - When the World Baseball Classic begins on March 8th, four former HarbourCats, all pitchers, will be wearing their respective country's team colors and hoping to do their part to lead their teams to success in the tournament.

Nick Pivetta, Cade Smith and Indigo Diaz were three of the 17 pitchers named to the 30-Man Team Canada roster on Thursday, while Chavez Fernander joins the pitching staff of Great Britain.

Pivetta of course is known for being the HarbourCats first ever signee and the first HarbourCats starter in the team's inaugural season in 2013. He is now with the Boston Red Sox where he has been a key member of their starting rotation.

Diaz was with the HarbourCats in 2016 and 2017, where he was an WCL All-Star selection, and is now with the Yankees Triple A Scranton, while Smith was with the HarbourCats in the summer of 2019 and is now in the Cleveland system and has recently been invited to 2023 big-league spring training with the Guardians.

Fernander, from the Bahamas, played for the HarbourCats in 2017, was drafted by the Detroit Tigers in 2018 and played last season with the Tigers High A affiliate West Michigan Whitecaps.

Other notable pros on the Team Canada roster include Freddie Freeman (Dodgers), Bo Naylor (Guardians), and former Langley Blaze superstar Tyler O'Neil (Cardinals), as well as three others with HarbourCats connections - Blue Jays prospect Damiano Palmegiani who was slated to play for the HarbourCats in 2020, veteran minor-leaguer Evan Rutckyj, whose cousin Nick, played for the 'Cats in 2013-2014 and pitcher Curtis Taylor, who was with the Kelowna Falcons in 2015 and pitched at RAP early in that year. Great Britain's Alex Webb is also another former Kelowna Falcon (2015).

Team Canada and Great Britain are seated in Pool C of the tournament, which actually begins play on March 11th and they will face some tough competition, notably from Team USA, who feature the likes of Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, Pete Alonso, Clayton Kershaw and Adam Wainwright to name a few. Other teams in the pool include Columbia and Mexico.

The 2023 World Baseball Classic, being played for the first time since 2017, has been expanded from 16 to 20 teams, split into four pools of five teams each. Every team will play the other teams in its pool once, with the top two teams from each pool at the end of this round advancing to an eight-team, single-elimination stage. This will culminate with the championship game on March 21.



West Coast League Stories from February 10, 2023


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