One of the most beloved events in the baseball community is coming up soon. The World Baseball Classic (WBC) will be March 5-17, with games hosted across three different countries. The format has been confirmed as the same as past tournaments, with four groups of 5 teams playing a round robin format with the top 2 teams from each group advancing. From there, the remaining 8 teams will be seeded and play in a single elimination bracket to determine the winner.
For the Group Stage the groups have already been decided. The games for Group A will be played in San Juan, Puerto Rico, between Teams Puerto Rico, Cuba, Canada, Panama and Colombia. Group B games will be played in Houston, Texas, between Teams USA, Mexico, Brazil, Italy and Great Britain. Group C will have pool play games in Tokyo, Japan, with teams Japan, Australia, South Korea, Chinese Taipei and Czech Republic. The remaining teams, Teams Nicaragua, Israel, Venezuela, Dominican Republic and Netherlands will play in Miami, Florida. After the Group stage, Quarterfinal games will be played in Houston and Miami, and Semifinal and Final games will take place in Miami.
Out of the 20 teams participating, 16 participated in the last contest in 2023. The four newly qualified teams, Brazil, Chinese Taipei, Colombia and Nicaragua, have all made past tournaments. However, most of the focus is on Team USA and Team Japan. Back in 2023, Team Japan took down Team USA in the finals, with Shohei Ohtani of Japan ending the game striking out Mike Trout, his longtime teammate. At the time, these two were widely considered the two best players alive, so the win held much significance for Team Japan.
In my opinion, Team USA has the most interesting story line and the most to play for this tournament. Going into the 2023 WBC with a win, expectations were high for a repeat title. However, the rise of Japan’s young stars and elite arms took them down in the championship. After coming this close to a title, Team USA is coming back much much stronger. Comparing rosters between the 2023 and 2026 teams, it is clear that this year has a much stronger roster. Led by three time MLB MVP Aaron Judge, Team USA holds 48 total MLB all star game appearances across all players, a massive number compared to all other countries.
Team USA has six total returning players from their 2023 roster, not a huge amount. The biggest headlines for Team USA this year focus on younger talent joining the roster for the first time and contributing as a new generation. The team is split just about equally between players under and over the age of thirty, with most of the excitement coming from those under 30. The mass appeal of the team to this point is based around Captain Judge, along with Gunnar Henderson of the Baltimore Orioles. Joining them are young stars Bobby Witt Jr. of the Kansas City Royals and Cal Raleigh of the Seattle Mariners, who finished second in AL MVP voting this past year after a massive breakout season.
Leading the pitching staff for Team USA are Paul Skenes of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Tarik Skubal of the Detroit Tigers, the starters for the NL and AL in the 2025 all star game. Skenes and Skubal both won the CY Young award during the 2025 season, and Skubal collected his first the year before in 2024. Along with the young firepower comes experience, with veteran Clayton Kershaw of the Los Angeles Dodgers joining the team for one last time after announcing his retirement from the MLB at the end of the 2025 season. The very strong starters are followed by a young, much deeper bullpen than years past. This bullpen, led by young Padres fireballer Mason Miller along with more experienced Pirates David Bednar and Yankees Clay Holmes.
For Team USA, the group stage should be a breeze. The top 2 teams from every group qualify for the bracket stage of the WBC, and Team USA is the highest seeded team in their bracket. The main focus for the group stage would be to win every game, ensuring that any rematch with Team Japan would be in the championship game. Although seeded as the number 2 overall team, Team USA has the highest betting odds and is favored to win the tournament, with their line sitting around +225, followed by Team Japan at +350 and Team DR at +370. In my opinion, there are two important factors for Team USA that will win or lose them the tournament; decisions with pitchers regarding management and relievers along with experience of younger players.
First, the pitching aspect of the WBC. With strict rules that are nonexistent in the MLB, managers will have a whole different battle to take care of when managing pitchers. Pitching rules for the WBC state that a pitcher can throw no more than 65 pitches in 1 pool play game, 80 pitches in the quarterfinal game, or 95 pitches in the semifinal and championship games. Pitchers are also required 1 days rest after 30-49 pitches and 4 days rest after 50+ pitches. Rules also state that pitchers cannot throw more than two days in a row without a mandatory rest day on the third day.
For Mark Derosa, the manager of Team USA, this will be his second time managing Team USA, giving him experience and an upper hand. Derosa rotated pitchers in and out to maximise innings during the pool play round in 2023, and treated elimination games like a game 7 of the world series, bringing in his best arms early and intending to win every game with comfort. This year, Derosa has the upper hand on his 2023 roster, having two of the world’s most dominant starting pitchers in Skenes and Skubal, both of whom will most likely pitch all 95 pitches in the semifinal and championship games respectively. This should allow him to utilize his most special arms out of the bullpen multiple times each during bracket play while not running a risk of running out of pitches.
The other major issue that Team USA may run into is a very inexperienced roster. Many of the younger players on this year’s roster have never experienced a big environment of a playoff series, much less representing your country on an international stage. Bobby Witt Jr., the projected leadoff hitter for Team USA, has played in a total of six playoff games for his career. In these six games he has a .192 batting average with two RBIs and 0 XBH. This raises worry of the pressure rising to him along with others on the team during big moments. This has already been seen with captain Aaron Judge, who had a very unfortunate encounter in World Series Game 5 back in 2024. Judge dropped a routine fly ball in center field at the start of the 5th inning, starting a spiral of mistakes during an inning where Yankees ace Gerrit Cole generated 7 potential outs for the team. This inning handed the Dodgers the lead, allowing them to win the game 7-6, and the series 4-1. These two situations draw attention to the youth and inexperience of the roster at a large stage, and cause reason to believe that things could go wrong come March.
Overall, I believe that Team USA is still the best team in the tournament, and this Team USA specifically is one of the best rosters that has ever been assembled for the WBC. I don’t believe that Team USA should be as large of a favorite to win it all as they currently are, but I still like their chances. I believe that if Team USA was to lose, it would be a repeat of 2023, falling short to Japan in the championship game due to running out of arms and a lack of generation of hits and thus runs due to Japan’s mound dominance.
