Battling Bucs : ATP Starting 8 By Birth Country

As you probably know I have been working on assembling two All Time Pirates teams based on place of birth. One of those teams is made up of players born outside the 50 US states and District of Columbia. Recently I just concluded the non-pitchers which for the international team consisted of 130 players. I thought it would be interesting to break that group down a little farther and look at the players on a country by country basis. In all fifteen "countries" are represented in the pool of eligible international players but only four have enough players to put together a starting 8. Below is my chosen starting 8 for each squad.
Canada (17 eligible players)
C: George Gibson
1B: Justin Morneau
2B: John O'Brien
3B: Russell Martin
SS: Pop Smith
LF: Doug Frobel
CF: Jason Bay
RF: Matt Stairs
* Morneau gets the edge over Jimmy Knowles and Frank Colman (who also just lost to Frobel) in the closest race. Martin at 3B probably seems odd but only three players have played any 3rd and one of them Pop Smith is the only one to have ever played SS (Billy Reid is the other with all of one game).
Puerto Rico (24 eligible players)
C: Junior Ortiz
1B: Orlando Merced
2B: Jose Lind
3B: Jose Hernandez
SS: Jose Pagan
LF: Wil Cordero
CF: Carlos Bernier
RF: Roberto Clemente
* Pagan had a 3B or SS spot locked down and Hernandez edged out Fernando Gonzalez, Rey Quinones and Ramon Vazquez for the other spot. Outfield is a mess with Bernier and Cordero barely edging out Sixto Lezcano. Merced could move to the outfield by Carlos Rivera or Eddie Vargas weren't exactly pushing to be started.
Venezuela (15 eligible players)
C: Raul Chavez
1B: Vic Davalillo
2B: Carlos Garcia
3B: Luis Sojo
SS: Ronny Cedeno
LF: Jose Tabata
CF: Gorkys Hernandez
RF: Tony Alvarez
* Al Pedrique challenged Sojo and Cedeno for their starting spots. Davalillo should be in the OF but is the only player with significant time at 1B. As for the outfield Alex Ramirez pushed Hernandez and Alvarez for the final two spots. Jose Castillo is probably the most notable player to miss out but aside from a few flashes he wasn't all that good.
Dominican Republic (36 eligible players)
C: Tony Pena
1B: Pedro Alvarez
2B: Abraham Nunez
3B: Aramis Ramirez
SS: Frank Taveras
LF: Starling Marte
CF: Matty Alou
RF: Manny Mota
* First base is a barren spot with only 4 players receiving any time there. Alvarez, Pena and Alou are the notable ones and Alvarez has the best replacement in Ramirez. Nelson Liriano and Rafael Belliard provided the challnege to Nunez at 2B which was the closest race but Nunez gets the edge due to longevity. Jose Guillen and Jose Bautista are the significant names not present.
For fun I took the remaining 38 players (11 countries) and split them into two teams. An eastern hemisphere consisting of Europe and Asia and a Latin American one consisting of the rest of the countries in the Latin region.
Eastern Hemisphere (England, Ireland, Germany, Scotland and Japan; 16 eligible players)
C: Jocko Fields (Ireland)
1B: Fritz Mollwitz (Germany)
2B: Akinori Iwamura (Japan)
3B: Dave Brain (England)
SS: Bill Kuehne (Germany)
LF: Tom Brown (England)
CF: Patsy Donovan (Ireland)
RF: Conny Doyle (Ireland)
* Mike Hopkins is the lone Scotchman and he didn't make the starting 8. Iwamura is really the only 2B so he won easily. The only real compeition came from Fields being eligible for C and OF. Doyle beat out Harry Smith (catcher) for the final spot putting Fields at the backstop.
Latin America (Bahamas, Cuba, Curacao, Mexico, Panama and Virgin Islands; 22 eligible players)
C: Manny Sanguillen (Panama)
1B: Randall Simon (Curacao)
2B: Rennie Stennett (Panama)
3B: Andre Rodgers (Bahamas)
SS: Mario Mendoza (Mexico)
LF: Joe Christopher (Virgin Islands)
CF: Omar Moreno (Panama)
RF: Roman Mejias (Cuba)
* Jackie Hernandez provided the infield challenge and was slightly better offensively than Mendoza but not much. In the outfield Midre Cummings barely lost out to Christopher and Mejias. Panama proved to be a beast here producing in my opinion easily the three best players on the team. Carlos Maldonado is the only other Panama born non-pitcher to have played for the Pirates.
Six interesting teams listed above. None of them are awful teams, sure they could be improved upon but considering the size of the pool they are pulling from it could be a lot worse. Just for the hell of it I have assembled one last team, the starting 8 of the remaining 82 players.
C: Ronny Paulino (Dominican Republic)
1B: Jimmy Knowles (Canada)
2B: Jose Castillo (Venezuela)
3B: Jose Bautista (Dominican Republic)
SS: Rafael Belliard (Venezuela)
LF: Frank Colman (Canada)
CF: Gregory Polanco (Dominican Republic)
RF: Jose Guillen (Dominican Republic)

OMG... You have out done yourself here.
I love the selection of George "Mooney" Gibson from the Canadian team.
He was an important part of the 1909 World Series champ team...
With Roberto Clemente on that Porto Rico team? Hard to think any better leader than him. My money be on that team as the best.
But that Dominican team has some power and some nice BA's Humm hard to figure.
BB Your History of the PBC expertise continues to grow!!!

Originally Posted by magoo This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. ://">://" onclick="kh99_iqts_show('348773_1'); return false;">Show Quote OMG... You have out done yourself here.
I love the selection of George "Mooney" Gibson from the Canadian team.
He was an important part of the 1909 World Series champ team...
With Roberto Clemente on that Porto Rico team? Hard to think any better leader than him. My money be on that team as the best.
But that Dominican team has some power and some nice BA's Humm hard to figure.
BB Your History of the PBC expertise continues to grow!!! Thank you. I thought it was a neat little exercise since I had all the data pulled out anyway. Personally I'd give the edge to the Dominicans but that Canadian team is sneaky good and like you said the Puerto Ricans with Clemente and to a lesser extent Merced could surprise.