Fans of the New York Yankees are understandably gun-shy about their stars participating in the World Baseball Classic. In the 2013 series, Mark Teixeira suffered a wrist injury that he recently told Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports, “knocked [him] out for two years,” and, in hindsight, may have been the beginning of the end for his abbreviated career.
It makes sense then that no one is thrilled with the news that the team’s best player in 2016, Yankees staff ace Masahiro Tanaka, will be participating in the tournament next spring before the start of the 2017 regular season.