ORLANDO, Fla. – From the moment Mike Trout swung through strike three against then-teammate Shohei Ohtani to hand Japan the crown in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, Team USA manager Mark DeRosa has had his mind on vengeance.
And pitching.
“You see it from every other country,” DeRosa said Tuesday at a World Baseball Classic media event at the Winter Meetings. “Their best arms show up. For whatever reason, in the United States, our best arms don’t show up. That being said, we’re trying to change that narrative.”
Paul Skenes, DeRosa believes, has changed that narrative.
DeRosa and Team USA general manager Michael Hill spoke about the increasingly loaded roster the Americans are assembling for the 2026 World Baseball Classic, which for the U.S. will begin with Pool B play at 8 p.m. ET on March 6, when it will face Brazil at Houston’s Daikin Park.
On Tuesday, slugger Kyle Schwarber was not only reported to be headed back to the Phillies on a mammoth five-year deal but was also confirmed to be returning to Team USA. Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson, Brewers second baseman Brice Turang and Dodgers catcher Will Smith are also confirmed for a club already set to include the likes of outfielders Aaron Judge, Corbin Carroll and Pete Crow-Armstrong, shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. and catcher Cal Raleigh.
So once again, Team USA, which captured its lone championship in this event in 2017, will have a loaded lineup.
But for DeRosa and Hill, that’s the relatively easy part.
“I think there's a huge sense of pride from our players where they want to be a part of this,” Hill said. “They want to don the red, white and blue, and hopefully help us finish the job. [DeRosa] has had to field a lot of the phone calls, and I know he’s said that he may lose a few friends when it's all said and done, because our roster's 30 players. You know, we wish it could be 50 or 60 players, but it's going to be 30.”
It's the pitching part of those 30 spots that’s proven trickier through the years. In 2023, the Team USA pitching staff was fronted by Adam Wainwright, Merrill Kelly and Lance Lynn – terrific, talented, accomplished arms. But not the first names that would have come to mind had you been asked to name the game’s American-born aces.
The problem, of course, is one of timing, as Spring Training is an important time for pitchers to get stretched back out and prepare for the rigors of the long year. It can be a delicate and difficult thing to get ready for a highly competitive tournament at that stage of the year (and of course doing it in-season or after the season would pose challenges of its own).
But getting buy-in from the 2024 NL Rookie of the Year and 2025 NL Cy Young winner Skenes – and early buy-in, at that, as Skenes was announced as a member of the Team USA roster back in May – has been vital.
“Skenes,” DeRosa said, “changes the game.”
Though Skenes is the only pitcher listed on the official Team USA roster, DeRosa has had enough conversations with potential options to feel confident that he’s going to have a deeper pitching staff than he did in 2023.
“Truth be told, if Lance Lynn doesn't go out and dominate against Canada pool play in Game 3 [in 2023], we didn’t necessarily have the pitching to cover everything,” said DeRosa, “because we had such guardrails on everybody. It made for very difficult, sleepless nights. You’re not managing at that point, you’re piecing it together at that point and counting pitches. So going into it this time, I want to attack it from what we need if X happens or Y happens.”
With team captain Judge the pillar of the position player side and Skenes the pillar of the pitching side, DeRosa and Hill feel confident Team USA will have what it takes to get back on top.
“I think guys who watched in ‘23 and saw the game against Japan, saw the iconic moment between Trout and Ohtani, saw Trea Turner's [grand slam] against Venezuela … it's like, man, these are moments in time,” DeRosa said. “And you got a chance to do that. My pitch has been completely different this time. It's like, ‘You're gonna miss out on three weeks of the greatest time of your life as a ballplayer, unless you win a World Series.’ That's what this is becoming. I mean, you see the way Latin America and Japan and everybody is [treating the event that way], and I just feel like there's been a groundswell with the United States players that, ‘All right, it's time for us to go.’”