Americas Olympics Qualifier To Be Held In June In Florida

After months of waiting, Team USA now knows when its next shot at qualifying for the Olympics will be.

The World Baseball Softball Confederation announced Tuesday that the Americas qualifier for the Olympics will be held in Florida in June, with the exact dates and venues still to be determined.

Team USA will be one of eight teams from the Americas competing for a spot in Tokyo. The winner of the eight-team tournament receives an automatic berth to the Olympics.

Team USA will be in Group A with the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Nicaragua. Group B will be comprised of Cuba, Venezuela, Canada and Colombia.

If Team USA fails to win the Americas qualifier but finishes in second or third, it will have one more chance to qualify for the Olympics. The second- and third-place finishers will advance to a final qualifier that will be held June 16-20 in Taichung, Taiwan.

The MLB and MLBPA have yet to announce which players will be eligible to participate in the qualifiers. Only non-40 man roster players have historically been eligible to play.

The Americas qualifier was originally scheduled to take place March 2020 in Arizona before the coronavirus pandemic forced sports to shut down and the Olympics to be delayed by a year.

Japan, South Korea, Israel and Mexico have already qualified for the six-team field at the Olympics.