{"id":554071,"date":"2026-02-04T11:22:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T11:22:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/554071\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T11:22:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T11:22:23","slug":"aroldis-chapman-denied-chance-to-play-for-great-britain-in-wbc-over-lineage-requirements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/554071\/","title":{"rendered":"Aroldis Chapman denied chance to play for Great Britain in WBC over \u2018lineage requirements\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aroldis Chapman won\u2019t be playing in the World Baseball Classic after all.<\/p>\n

The Red Sox closer was left off Great Britain\u2019s roster after it was found that he \u201cdid not meet the blood lineage requirements\u201d to play for the team, according to MassLive<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Chapman, 37, was named to the preliminary roster and expected to be eligible to play for Great Britain as his grandparents emigrated from Jamaica, which had previously been a British colony.<\/p>\n

The eight-time All-Star is the latest big name to be ruled out of the WBC.<\/p>\n

\"Aroldis<\/p>\n

Aroldis Chapman of the Boston Red Sox closes out the ninth inning when the Boston Red Sox defeated the New York Yankees on August 22, 2025 at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, NY. Robert Sabo for NY Post<\/p>\n

Team Puerto Rico has floated the idea of potentially dropping out of the tournament<\/a> after several key players, including Francisco Lindor, Carlos Correa, Jos\u00e9 Berrios and Emilio Pagan, were forced to withdraw.<\/p>\n

Venezuela has also been hit hard by insurance issues<\/a>, losing Jos\u00e9 Altuve, Miguel Rojas and Carlos Narvaez.<\/p>\n

Chapman, 37, played for Cuba in the 2009 World Baseball Classic.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

The flame-throwing southpaw had one of the best seasons of his career in 2025, posting a 1.17 ERA across 61 \u2153 innings while saving 32 games for Boston.<\/p>\n

\"Boston<\/p>\n

Boston Red Sox pitcher Aroldis Chapman (44) in the first inning of a baseball game against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Sunday, Sept 7, 2025, in Phoenix. AP<\/p>\n

Chapman was dominant out of the bullpen, and he received American League Cy Young and MVP votes for just the second time in his career.<\/p>\n

After signing with Boston in free agency last winter, Chapman inked a one-year, $13.3 million extension<\/a> with a mutual vesting option for 2027 with the Red Sox near the end of the 2025 season.<\/p>\n

Playing in their second WBC, Great Britain is led by Yankees star Jazz Chisholm Jr.<\/a>, who did not play for the team last time around in 2023 due to injuries.<\/p>\n

The tournament will kick off in Japan on March 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aroldis Chapman won\u2019t be playing in the World Baseball Classic after all. The Red Sox closer was left…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2404],"tags":[146,22,4314,1113,5,48,3225,789,38,1105,227,1363,817,387,8935,4,62],"class_list":{"0":"post-554071","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arizona-diamondbacks","8":"tag-arizona","9":"tag-arizona-diamondbacks","10":"tag-arizonadiamondbacks","11":"tag-aroldis-chapman","12":"tag-baseball","13":"tag-boston-red-sox","14":"tag-carlos-correa","15":"tag-carlos-narvaez","16":"tag-diamondbacks","17":"tag-emilio-pagan","18":"tag-francisco-lindor","19":"tag-jazz-chisholm-jr","20":"tag-jose-altuve","21":"tag-jose-berrios","22":"tag-miguel-rojas","23":"tag-mlb","24":"tag-new-york-yankees"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116012106823534691","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}