OTTAWA-Baseball Canada announced today the names of 30 athletes invited to participate in the Junior National Team’s (U-18) annual Fall Instructional League Camp that will take place in Lake Buena Vista, Florida from October 2-12.
The squad will play nine games in total, eight of which are against Fall Instructional League clubs from the Houston Astros, Washington Nationals, Toronto Blue Jays, Detroit Tigers and Atlanta Braves organizations. Team Canada will also face Stetson University in an annual contest at the school’s campus in Deland.
All other games and practices will take place at ESPN Wide World of Sports with the exception of the game on October 5th against the Blue Jays that will be played at the Bobby Mattick Complex in Dunedin.
The Fall Instructional League Camp is one of five remaining camps that will assist in the selection process to determine the 20-player roster that will represent Canada in the WBSC U-18 Baseball World Cup in Thunder Bay, Ontario from September 1 – 10, 2017.
“We’re at the point in our program where we can get a sense of what our roster will look like in Thunder Bay, next year,” said Head Coach and Director of National Teams, Greg Hamilton. “The Fall Instructional League Camp will offer our coaching staff an opportunity to evaluate players in a competitive environment, and at the same time, expose players to a level of competition that they will face at the next levels of the game.”
Roster highlights:
-Twenty players named to the roster participated in the Cuba Summer Series that took place in Havana, Cuba last July. 3B Rhys Cratty has previous experience with the Junior National Team program, while all other players named to the roster will be participating in the program for the first time. They include: Eric Cerantola, Denzel Clarke, Jake English, Brody Frerichs, Garrett Nicholson, Lucas Parente, Damiano Palmegiani, Cade Smith and William Undershute.
-Two players named to the roster were selected in June during the MLB First-Year Player Draft: OF Clayton Keyes (17th round, Blue Jays) and RHP William Sierra (28th round, Mets). Neither player signed and are therefore eligible for the 2017 draft.
-Two players (Cooper Davis and Adam Hall) named to the roster represented Canada at the 2015 WBSC U-18 Baseball World Cup in Osaka, Japan where the team finished in sixth.
-Greg Hamilton leads the coaching staff that also includes Hyung Cho, Mike Johnson and Shawn Bowman, while TJ Burton, Rick Johnston and Adam Stern round out the staff as guest coaches.
Team Info:
Roster
Pitching Rotation
Schedule
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