Riley O’Brien of the St. Louis Cardinals pitches against the San Francisco Giants during the clubs’ Major League Baseball regular-season game at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Oct. 8, 2025. Yonhap
St. Louis Cardinals reliever Riley O’Brien and Detroit Tigers outfielder Jahmai Jones were among four U.S.-born players of Korean descent named to the Korean national team for the World Baseball Classic (WBC) on Friday.
The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) unveiled the 30-man roster for the March 5-17 tournament. O’Brien and Jones are joined by Seattle Mariners pitcher Dane Dunning and Houston Astros utility player Shay Whitcomb.
All four players were born to American fathers and Korean mothers. Per WBC’s eligibility rules, players can represent the country of birth of one of their parents, even if those players themselves weren’t born in that country. For the 2023 WBC, Korea had Gold Glove-winning infielder Tommy Edman, who was born in the U.S. to a Korean mother.
Edman was not available this time because of an offseason ankle surgery.
Manager Ryu Ji-hyun said the additions of these four will give Korea more balance up and down the roster.
“They all said they were honored to represent the country of their mothers’ birth, and they all expressed a strong desire to play for this team,” Ryu said at his press conference announcing the roster on Friday.
Dunning has the longest major league resume in this group, with 136 games — including 102 starts — and a 28-32 record, along with a 4.44 ERA in 593 1/3 innings. The 31-year-old was a 12-game winner for the Texas Rangers in their World Series championship season in 2023. He tossed 2 1/3 scoreless innings in the Rangers’ five-game win over the Arizona Diamondbacks in the World Series.
Jones, 28, batted .287 with an on-base plus slugging (OPS) of .937 in 72 games last year. Whitcomb, 27, batted only .125 in 20 games for the Astros in 2025, but he has hammered Triple-A pitching in each of the past two years, combining for 50 home runs and 155 RBIs in 215 games.
O’Brien, 31, pitched to a career-best 2.06 ERA and six saves last year in 42 games for the Cardinals.
For this year’s squad, there are two other Korean big leaguers in San Francisco Giants outfielder Lee Jung-hoo and Los Angeles Dodgers infielder Kim Hye-seong, plus reliever Go Woo-suk, who recently signed a minor league deal with the Tigers and has yet to play in the big league.
Manager Ryu filled the rest of his spots with KBO stars, including two former league MVPs in Hanwha Eagles pitcher Ryu Hyun-jin and Kia Tigers third baseman Kim Do-yeong.
Korea will have 15 pitchers — with four left-handers — and 15 position players.
The 2025 Korean Series champions LG Twins have the biggest KBO representation with six players, and the Eagles, the runner-up, are next with five players.
Korea will face Japan, Chinese Taipei, Australia and the Czech Republic in Pool C, with all of these countries’ games at Tokyo Dome in Tokyo. The top two teams from each of the four pools will advance to the quarterfinals, set to be played in the United States.
Korea was eliminated in the preliminary round at each of the past three editions — 2013, 2017 and 2023 — after going to the semifinals at the inaugural WBC in 2006 and losing to Japan in the championship final in 2009.