Machado plans to play in six or seven spring training games before leaving to join the Dominican Republic's team for the World Baseball Classic, Brittany Ghiroli of MLB.com reports.
After playing in all 162 game in 2015, the Orioles' three-time All-Star sat out just five games last season. Machado's large workload over the past two campaigns, combined with his expectation to make another run into November this year, has him thinking about late-season fatigue. "You also don't want to go in and play too many games early on [in the spring] and get tired. I know we're going to play quite a few games in the Classic," Machado said. "You don't want to play too many games as well because I don't want to get fatigued for the year." He and manager Buck Showalter have already met to lay out a plan for spring training, and Machado is confident he'll be fine for another full workload in 2017.