Up to seven Blue Jays could be participating in this spring’s World Baseball Classic but slugger Jose Bautista won’t be one of them.
“Right now he’s not going to play,” general manager Alex Anthopoulos said following the Jose Reyes media conference Thursday. “I know he feels great, he’s swinging (the bat) each day. He’s hopeful to play in our first spring training game.
“I think the biggest thing (in making the decision) with that is we need him ready for the season and we don’t know that if he was in the World Baseball Classic and after two or three games he was sore .... it’s hard to take yourself out or say ‘I need a day or two of rest.’ We just can’t afford to take that kind of chance.”
Last year Bautista’s season was cut short because of his wrist injury that limited him to 92 games. In September he underwent surgery to stabilize a tendon in his wrist and the Jays don’t want him to reinjure it while playing for the Dominican Republic.
