This was fun, though I'm not really happy with how my team turned out. I wanted to make sure to bracket off the best players from the three BIG baseball countries (US, DR, and VZ) but the best players from the latter two countries aren't quite as clearcut as Trout is. Though Altuve is probably close. Point is, that means I ended up going straight after those two and just kind of kept rolling the Dominican over until I ran out of possibilities. On one hand, that's reasonable because there's a ton of good players from there and so not really a wrong answer. On the other, "not the wrong answer" isn't the same thing as "the right answer" and there's something that feels kind of unsatisfying as using that pick on Nelson Cruz.

I am pretty pleased that I didn't cheat and use Puerto Rico, though they play as their own country in international play so maybe I should have? Lindor would (off-hand) be the best player from there right now, but maybe the better pick would be catcher instead of Grandal (so, Molina maybe?) and then use the Cuba pick somewhere else? Jose Fernandez would have been excellent for that, but that won't work. Maybe Chapman in relief (even though he's on the shelf right now) and Yu Darvish for starting pitcher? I'm always pleased with myself for remembering that Teheran is from Columbia, but he's basically the Max Kepler of Americas on this list - just there because he occupies an unusual baseball country.

No Koreans either. I don't really feel like thinking through that one.

Mike Trout (USA) - CF
Joe Votto (CAN) - 1B
Jose Altuve (VEZ) - 2B
Max Kepler (DEU) - RF
Xander Bogaerts (ABW) - 3B (cheating a bit, but he played it in 2014)
Andrelton Simmons (CUW) - SS
Yasmani Grandal (CUB) - C
Nelson Cruz (DOM) - LF
Julio Teheran (COL) - SP
Koji Uehara (JPN) - RP