{"id":591225,"date":"2026-02-25T01:57:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T01:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/591225\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T01:57:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T01:57:10","slug":"nacho-alvarez-jr-to-play-in-wbc-for-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/591225\/","title":{"rendered":"Nacho Alvarez, Jr. to play in WBC for Mexico"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">With newly signed free agent Ram\u00f3n Ur\u00edas opting to report to Spring Training with St. Louis Cardinals, Mexico is replacing the veteran infielder with Atlanta Braves infielder Nacho Alvarez, Jr. for the 2026 World Baseball Classic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Alvarez, Jr. will be the sixth Braves player in camp for Spring Training slated play in this year\u2019s WBC with outfielder Ronald Acu\u00f1a, Jr. playing for Venezuela, non-roster invitee pitcher Javy Guerra with Panama, and outfielder Jurickson Profar, catcher Chadwick Tromp and infielder Ozzie Albies playing for the Netherlands.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Alvarez, Jr., 22, is likely on the roster bubble for Atlanta\u2019s 26-man roster for this season. After missing much of the 2025 season due to injury, he was pressed in to action with the big league team after Austin Riley was lost for the season. Alvarez, Jr. played in 58 games for Atlanta last year after making his MLB debut in 2024. He also played in the 2025 Arizona Fall League.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Early in this year\u2019s Spring Training, Alvarez, Jr. was working with the catchers, and would likely benefit from getting regular playing time at Triple-A regardless to whether to will look to add another defensive position to his toolbox.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Alvarez, Jr. will join a Mexican team with a number of current and former big league players, including one-time Braves prospects Victor Vodnik and Joey Meneses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With newly signed free agent Ram\u00f3n Ur\u00edas opting to report to Spring Training with St. Louis Cardinals, Mexico&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591226,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2394],"tags":[191,46,4206,4166,5,192,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-591225","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-braves","8":"tag-atlanta","9":"tag-atlanta-braves","10":"tag-atlanta-braves-news","11":"tag-atlantabraves","12":"tag-baseball","13":"tag-braves","14":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116128790593906117","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591225","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=591225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}