![\"Team](\"https:\/\/images2.minutemediacdn.com\/image\/upload\/c_crop,x_0,y_0,w_0,h_0\/c_fill,w_16,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto\/images\/voltaxMediaLibrary\/mmsport\/si\/01kjx4b0vf5qdmaea9bj.jpg\" "\\"Team")
<\/p>\nIt\u2019s possible that the best thing that ever happened to the World Baseball Classic was when Mike Trout struck out to end it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The moment was electric, an incredible cap to the 2023 tournament, as the game\u2019s two greatest players faced off and Shohei Ohtani closed out the championship for Team Japan. It was also a source of frustration among the Americans who had declined an opportunity to play, including righty Logan Webb, whose Giants preferred he stay with the club for spring training. Three years later, San Francisco wanted Webb to stick around again, but when national team manager Mark DeRosa called to recruit him, Webb said yes right away.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWatching Team USA lose in the championship was hard for a lot of guys,\u201d says Webb. \u201cThis is probably, I would say, the best team that we\u2019ve ever put out there. Guys are excited. I think it\u2019s great for baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n
Three years ago, the top three of the U.S. rotation consisted of 36-year-old Lance Lynn, 41-year-old Adam Wainwright and 34-year-old Merrill Kelly. This year it will roll out the two reigning Cy Young Award winners, 23-year-old Pirates ace Paul Skenes and 29-year-old Tigers ace Tarik Skubal, and the 29-year-old Webb, who was an All-Star each of the past two seasons.\u00a0<\/p>\n
DeRosa laughs as he recalls how few of the players he phoned this year let him get through his pitch. \u201cThe conversations were a heck of a lot different than in 2023,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Megan Briggs\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Players from other countries might roll their eyes at the Americans for ever needing a hard sell. But the U.S.\u2019s full participation\u2014finally\u2014helps make global something that was already true regionally: The WBC is baseball at its best.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI do feel like Latin America and Japan kind of have forced the United States\u2019s hand in this,\u201d says DeRosa admiringly.<\/p>\n
The U.S. is just catching up. When the tournament debuted in 2006, fans and even some players\u2014most of them American\u2014saw it as a bit of a gimmick, baseball\u2019s questionable attempt to capture some of the energy of the soccer World Cup. DeRosa, who played on Team USA that year, admits he mostly signed up to get out of spring training and hang out with Derek Jeter for a couple of weeks. But 20 years later, nearly every active player grew up watching the tournament. Playing in the WBC is fulfilling a childhood dream almost as much as playing in the World Series is.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Team](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/01kjx6t0hvm6mc0yja2s.jpg\" "\\"Team")
<\/p>\n
Aaron Judge is set to represent Team USA at the World Baseball Classic for the first time. | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images<\/p>\n
Players from Latin America and Asia have never needed much convincing. \u201cI think our countries love baseball more than anybody in the world,\u201d says Venezuelan Dodgers shortstop Miguel Rojas. \u201cIt\u2019s our first sport. We find a lot of joy in the game of baseball, a lot of unity. So a lot of people get together to watch baseball and root for the same thing, and that doesn’t happen often, especially in our countries, because we have so many different teams over there, many people to root for. But when it\u2019s about the country, everybody gets together and roots for the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Webb says, \u201cI didn\u2019t really understand it until I got to professional baseball. But you\u2019re taking these guys away from their home.\u201d The WBC allows them to spend time in a clubhouse full of people who speak their language, understand their customs and share their pride in the place that produced them. And because pool play takes place around the world before everyone comes together in Miami for the knockout rounds, they get to do it in front of their families and friends.<\/p>\n
Several members of the Dominican Republic team, including Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez and Manny Machado, said<\/a> in 2023 that they would choose a WBC victory over a World Series victory. This spring, Japanese World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto said he considered the two equal. (Some Japanese reporters, who expressed concern throughout October that Yamamoto\u2019s extensive playoff usage might affect his WBC availability the following March, might disagree.) Rangers reliever Alexis D\u00edaz, who opted out of this year\u2019s tournament at the last minute because he wants to make the big-league team, says everyone he knows in Puerto Rico would rather see him win a WBC than a World Series.<\/p>\n Players who have been\u2014and players who have only watched on TV, including Webb\u2014rave about the atmosphere, especially for the games held in Miami, which is often known as the capital of Latin America. Fans packed loanDepot Park, throwing dance parties in the aisles, waving flags and banging drums. After the U.S.\u2019s quarterfinal win over Venezuela in 2023, shortstop Trea Turner called it \u201cthe loudest game I\u2019ve ever played in.\u201d Reliever Ryan Pressly said it made him want to go play winter ball in Latin America. Third baseman Tim Anderson said he thought the crowd was better than in the MLB playoffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n Paul Skenes took the mound for Team USA on Tuesday for an exhibition against the San Francisco Giants before his scheduled WBC start against Mexico on Monday. | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images<\/p>\n Challenges remain. The tournament serves at the pleasure of MLB, which has thrown resources at the event but will always prioritize its own season; for example, the pitch limits, from 65 per game in the first round to 95 in the final, are probably not going anywhere. Clubs continue to negotiate with the national teams around their players\u2019 usage, which is how you get Skubal starting against Great Britain in the group stage and then returning to Tigers camp, and why Ohtani will not pitch for Japan. And most notably this year, many players found themselves off rosters after being denied insurance coverage<\/a>. (The WBC takes out insurance policies on the MLB contracts of participating players; the insurance company pays their salary if they are injured during the tournament, as when then-Mets closer Edwin D\u00edaz tore his patellar tendon during a celebration in 2023.)<\/p>\n Team Puerto Rico threatened to withdraw entirely after stars including Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor and Astros third baseman Carlos Correa were deemed uninsurable due to previous injuries; after the league and the union lobbied the insurance company, National Financial Partners, Red Sox reliever Jovani Mor\u00e1n and Twins minor league reliever Luis Qui\u00f1ones were reinstated for the Puerto Ricans. Rojas, who had hoped to play for Team Venezuela but was denied because he is 37, had no such luck.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, I feel like it\u2019s not 100% the best against the best,\u201d says Rojas. \u201cIt\u2019s just whoever can go against whoever can go.\u201d<\/p>\n And indeed, that lasting image from 2023 would be impossible to reproduce this year\u2014not only will Ohtani not be pitching, but Trout was denied insurance coverage and will not play at all. Still, the players who can go expect to put on a show. The victory will be all the more legitimate because every country is finally sending its best. Webb believes this is Team USA\u2019s year. And either way, he plans to be there.<\/p>\n More MLB on Sports Illustrated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s possible that the best thing that ever happened to the World Baseball Classic was when Mike Trout…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520490,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-520489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Team](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/01kjx6nd7tgsr6jn5p33.jpg\" "\\"Team")
<\/p>\n