In the three years since Shohei Ohtani struck out Mike Trout to end a riveting 2023 World Baseball Classic, winning the tournament in 2026 has consumed Mark DeRosa’s every thought.
To give his team the best chance, the Team USA manager knew there had to be a shift.
“You see it from every other country, their best arms show up,” DeRosa said at the winter meetings in early December. “For whatever reason, the United States, our best arms don’t show up. That being said, we’re trying to change that narrative.”
DeRosa expressed his appreciation for the commitment of the pitchers who threw for Team USA over the years, but it was hardly a representation of the best the country had to offer.
In 2023, the team’s four starting pitchers in the World Baseball Classic were Merrill Kelly, Lance Lynn, Nick Martinez and a 41-year-old Adam Wainwright. They were all established MLB veterans coming off respectable seasons, but they were also all over the age of 30. None of them had won a Cy Young before, and they had a combined five career All-Star appearances among them — three of which belonged to Wainwright in the early 2010s.
While it was USA’s high-powered offense that ultimately cratered in the final, when Japan won 3-2, the U.S. pitching staff was more middling than overpowering throughout the tournament. USA ranked sixth among the 20 countries in the 2023 WBC in ERA (4.20), eighth in opponents’ batting average (.255), 10th in average fastball velocity (91.5 mph) and 11th in strikeouts per nine innings (8.25).
This year, Team USA should obliterate those numbers with the best rotation and pitching staff it has ever assembled.
Aaron Judge was the first player named to the 2026 U.S. roster as the team captain last April. Getting the three-time MVP to participate in the WBC for the first time is an obvious boost to USA’s chances as it seeks to reclaim its spot atop the international stage after winning the tournament in 2017.
But an arguably bigger announcement came weeks later, when Paul Skenes announced his commitment to the club.
“Skenes,” DeRosa said, “changes the game.”
Nearly a year before the 2026 WBC began, Team USA already had the AL MVP and the NL Cy Young in hand. That made for an effective recruiting tool as DeRosa and general manager Michael Hill built a roster that now looks more than capable of avenging USA’s 2023 defeat.
The starting rotation is such a behemoth that Matthew Boyd, a 2025 All-Star starting pitcher for the Cubs, will likely serve in a piggyback role.
“When you have someone of Paul Skenes’ stature saying ‘yes’ early on for the right reasons, someone like Aaron Judge doing the same, you go, ‘Man, I want to be part of it like those guys are,” Boyd told me. “I gotta say, I would’ve been doing it regardless, but when you get guys of their stature, it does bring people in. Those guys are the top of the game. You want to play with the best, too, and that’s something that’s really the cherry on top.”
Persuading offensive standouts to play has never been much of an issue for a U.S. club that included Mookie Betts, Kyle Schwarber, Mike Trout and Trea Turner in the last tournament. But getting star pitchers to commit while ramping up for a long MLB season — and assuming the potential injury risk that comes with that decision — has historically been a trickier endeavor.
The presence of Skenes, the top overall pick in 2023 who was named the National League Rookie of the Year in 2024 and the NL Cy Young in 2025, changed the dynamic.
“It’s just a matter of one guy doing it,” said Bobby Witt Jr., “and a domino effect.”
For Skenes, who played his first two college seasons at the Air Force Academy before transferring to LSU and was a member of the 12U and collegiate USA national teams, the choice was simple.
Growing up watching the WBC as a kid, he never thought he’d have the opportunity to play in one. He knew if he did, he wouldn’t pass it up. So when DeRosa called, it didn’t take any convincing.
“It’s Team USA,” Skenes said. “There’s no thought needed for it.”
In December, more pitching announcements came flooding in. Early that month, Boyd announced he would be joining Skenes on the USA staff. He wanted to pitch for the U.S. team in the last tournament but wasn’t healthy at the time and hoped he’d get another opportunity. When DeRosa called him, the stars aligned.
“If you don’t want competition, you’re in the wrong industry,” Boyd said. “I think all of us yearn for that competition, yearn for the big stage, yearn to compete against the best and want to go show why we are at that level. You train for those opportunities. So any time you present someone with that opportunity, at least for me personally, I’m magnetised toward those sorts of things.”
Boyd will be pitching in a multiple-inning capacity to stretch out his pitch count as he builds up for the 2026 season, but given the talent on the staff, it is likely that he’ll be coming out of the bullpen. Weeks after Boyd committed, Team USA also announced the additions of Twins All-Star starter Joe Ryan, two-time All-Star Clay Holmes and Mets prospect Nolan McLean — arguably the top pitching prospect in all of MLB — to the roster on Dec. 17. One day later, Tarik Skubal posted an emoji of the American flag on X, signaling his intention to join the group.
Suddenly, the Americans had the reigning NL and AL Cy Young Award winners forming the best 1-2 pitching punch in the tournament and leading the best pitching staff in Team USA history.
“You see Skenes and Skubal decide,” said USA reliever Gabe Speier, “everyone else wants to be part of it.”
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Paul Skenes is the reigning NL Cy Young winner. (Photo by Norm Hall/WBCI/MLB Photos via Getty Images) <!–>
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On the same day of Skubal’s announcement, Giants All-Star Logan Webb also officially joined the group. In Skubal, Skenes and Webb, the top three pitchers in the USA rotation have combined for three Cy Young Awards and six All-Star nods in the last two seasons alone.
Webb had initially committed to pitch for USA in the 2023 WBC but ultimately backed out as he was finalizing a long-term extension in San Francisco. Still, he told DeRosa at the time that it was always something he wanted to do at some point, so the USA manager stayed on him over the last few years.
“The ending, Shohei Ohtani vs. Mike Trout, it just excites you as a baseball fan,” Webb told me. “I was at the edge of my seat watching it, and I wanted to be a part of it. I think DeRo texted me 100 times these last three years, and I’d hear it from other people, ‘Hey, DeRo said you’re playing in this. Mookie Betts, I did his podcast, and he said, ‘You better play’ — and then he’s not playing, of course — but it was something I wanted to do.”
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Shortly after the 2025 season ended, Webb was on country singer ERNEST’s tour bus with Team USA bullpen coach David Ross and talk-show host Pat McAfee in Nashville when he finalized his decision.
“I told Rossy, ‘Text DeRo, tell him I’ll do it,’” Webb recalled. “It was something I wanted to do, and it was a cool moment, and I was like, ‘I’m going to do it.’ I was already thinking about it, and it wasn’t that difficult a decision to be honest.”
At the time, the addition of Webb might’ve seemed superfluous given the talent already in place. But with Skubal announcing that he’ll only make one start ahead of a contract year and with Ryan dealing with a lower back issue that will force him out of pool play, it could now be the difference in winning a championship.
Weeks before the tournament began, a text thread had started among the players on the team.
“DeRosa’s like, ‘We’re winning this thing, we gotta redeem ourselves,’” Speier told me. “There’s a bit of redemption involved, so it makes it even more high stakes.”
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A chance meeting helped Logan Webb convince his WBC decision. (Photo by Rob Tringali/WBCI/MLB Photos via Getty Images) <!–>
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Webb, who is slated to start USA’s opener on March 6 against Brazil, enters the tournament with contract security after signing a five-year, $90 million extension in 2023. Many others are pitching without the same long-term safety net. Skenes and McLean are still pre-arbitration, most of the relievers on the team are in their arbitration years, and Skubal, Boyd and David Bednar are among the pitchers on the roster entering their final seasons under contract. (Holmes is, too, with a player option for 2027.)
But they believed the benefits of pitching in the WBC, and the opportunity to represent their country and take back the title, outweighed any potential downsides.
“Obviously the risk is still there, especially for those of us that are entering free agency,” Boyd said. “But I know for me, first and foremost, the opportunity to represent your country is the highest honor in sport.”
Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on X at @RowanKavner.
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