How the last WBC helped Team USA assemble its best pitching staff ever

NEW YORK — Wherever Paul Skenes finds himself, he rarely deviates from routine. So on a recent frigid Manhattan morning, Skenes, in town to receive his 2025 National League Cy Young Award, showed up at a small baseball facility, his suitcase filled with workout tools, to throw a bullpen session. Just feet away from the 23-year-old superstar, a group of young boys practiced on the other side of the netting.

Skenes will be in the city again in March, taking the mound on Opening Day at Citi Field for the Pittsburgh Pirates. But his biggest starts of the year could actually come before that — in a different uniform.

Way back in May, Skenes was the second player to commit to play for Team USA in the upcoming World Baseball Classic, which kicks off next month. New York Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge, a three-time American League MVP, declared first and was named the squad’s captain for his first appearance in the event. But Skenes’ inclusion initiated a significant breakthrough for Team USA from previous tournaments, when many of the best American starting pitchers, fearing potential injury from a quick buildup for intense games during spring training and discouraged by their clubs to take the risk, declined to participate.

“We wanted to set the tone with those two as our pillars to build the momentum, because if players are on board, it’s a lot harder for [other] players to say no,” Team USA general manager Michael Hill said. “With Japan, the Japanese players participate. It’s not a discussion. They say that they’re playing and they go and play. The Dominican players, they say they’re playing and they go and play. And I don’t know if we had that exact dynamic in the past. So we were really intentional with how we started.”

To Skenes, whose collegiate career began at Air Force before a season at LSU, representing his country at the highest level has been a longtime goal after playing for Team USA as a youth and a collegiate. The right-hander called his decision a “no-brainer.” He emphasized he is not worried about the added workload and injury risk.

“I think that’s an excuse,” Skenes told ESPN. “You can mitigate risk by working harder. If you want to do something, you can do it. You just got to do everything that you need to do on the side to make sure you’re ready to go.”

In December, Detroit Tigers left-hander Tarik Skubal, the two-time defending AL Cy Young Award winner, announced he would join Team USA despite the 2026 season being his last before reaching free agency. All-Star starters Joe Ryan, Matthew Boyd and Logan Webb, who was a late scratch for the 2023 tournament, have also committed. So have Mets right-handers Clay Holmes, who converted from All-Star reliever to set a career high for innings pitched last season, and Nolan McLean, one of the top pitching prospects in the sport who has just eight major league outings under his belt.

Together, the group gives manager Mark DeRosa the best collection of Team USA starters ever, three years after a dramatic final between the U.S. and Japan concluded with one of the most memorable encounters — Shohei Ohtani vs. Mike Trout — in recent baseball history. It’s a moment DeRosa and Hill believe helped spur enthusiasm for an event American players were slower to prioritize than their counterparts.

“I just felt like we had yet to see our best against everyone’s best, for whatever reason,” DeRosa said. “There’s a multitude of reasons why. And I get it. There’s a lot of money on the table, and guys are at different parts in their career. But if we could protect them and build a team where they felt comfortable and their teams felt comfortable, I just wanted to try and put together the greatest team that’s ever been put on the field for the United States. And that’s kind of been my pitch to the guys.”

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SKENES WATCHED THE 2023 WBC final — and Ohtani strike out Trout, his former Los Angeles Angels teammate, to win the game — from his dorm room in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. That summer, he was drafted No. 1 overall by Pittsburgh. A year later, he started the All-Star Game on his way to winning NL Rookie of the Year. He started his second All-Star game last summer, in his second big league season. He owns a 1.96 career ERA across 55 starts. He is, alongside Skubal, one of the two best pitchers in the world, with a long career and an opportunity to obtain generational wealth ahead.

Historically, that combination discouraged the best young American pitchers from participating in the WBC. But Skenes did not hesitate, becoming a catalyst for the pitching staff Team USA officials envisioned constructing.

“That’s not a factor in my mind, getting hurt or anything like that,” Skenes said. “You can control what you can control and whatever happens, happens.”

Skenes said he changed his offseason routine “a little bit” from the past — not necessarily because of the tournament but because his training has evolved. This winter, with logging 200 innings for the Pirates for the first time as a top objective, he started throwing a week later to better recover from recording a career-high 187⅔ innings. (He accumulated 160⅓ innings between the minors and majors in 2024.) He also planned to throw live to hitters as soon as he reported to Pirates camp, rather than waiting a week.

“I feel Paul Skenes changed the game,” said DeRosa, who played for Team USA in the 2009 WBC and managed the 2023 team. “Once Paul announced that he was going to do it, some of the best pitchers in the game were telling me they wanted to be around him. And he was pretty adamant with me when he agreed that, like, ‘Hey, I want us to attack the best pitchers in the sport. I want to get better in this process when I’m with you guys for three weeks. I want to learn from different guys as well.’ That’s how it started. Paul was the first domino to fall.”

DeRosa said he and Hill had three pitching targets when they began reaching out to players and clubs last April: Skenes, Skubal and Zack Wheeler, who was on board before undergoing season-ending thoracic outlet surgery in August. Landing Skubal heading into a platform season in 2026 took time.

Team USA pitching coach Andy Pettitte kept in touch with Skubal via text through the summer. In November, at MLB’s award show in Las Vegas, DeRosa and Hill spoke with Skubal in person. They told him they would follow whatever plan his agent Scott Boras and Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris wished to implement. They encouraged him to reach out to Skenes. A month later, on Dec. 18, Skubal announced his intention to join the team; on the same day, Webb and relievers Mason Miller and David Bednar did, too.

“We felt like it was going to be a long shot,” Hill said. “It was a team effort, no doubt, in terms of how we got there. We were very intentional from the beginning.”

Three weeks after he announced his inclusion, Skubal and the Tigers failed to settle on a salary for the 2026 season, prompting the two sides to go to an arbitration hearing Feb. 4. The Tigers filed for $19 million. Skubal filed for $32 million. It was the largest gap in baseball salary arbitration history. Skubal won and will be paid the largest salary for a player in the arbitration system ever. A life-changing free agent contract awaits next winter. Nobody stands to lose more than the 29-year-old Skubal.

McLean’s participation is unprecedented for a different reason. Top pitching prospects have been off-limits for the WBC in the past, but Team USA hitting coach Matt Holliday, whose brother Josh coached McLean at Oklahoma State, kept texting DeRosa about the right-hander. DeRosa didn’t think McLean would accept an invitation heading into his first full major league season. But he reached out anyway.

“I gave him a call and told him what I was thinking,” DeRosa said. “He was like, ‘Oh, I want to do it. I want to be around the best pitchers in the game. I’m built for this. I’ve worked my tail off to get to this point. I know my body can handle it.'”

Teams cannot prohibit pitchers from participating unless they spent time on the injured list the previous season with an arm injury. Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns said the club has had conversations with McLean and Holmes about preparation for the increased workload and will “stay in very close contact” with Hill, DeRosa and Pettitte on their usage.

With Team USA’s first workout scheduled for March 2, ahead of its opener against Brazil in Houston on March 6, pitchers will have the opportunity to pitch in at least one spring training game before leaving for the tournament. There are workload restrictions, including pitch-count limits and mandatory rest periods, designed to curb injury risk. Teams will have six additional pitchers in a designated player pool who can replace active pitchers between rounds. But clubs remain wary.

“Players want to play in this,” said Stearns, whose Mets famously lost closer Edwin Diaz to a freak season-ending knee injury celebrating a win in the 2023 WBC. “This is a fun event. You put the name of your country on your chest. Players take a lot of pride in that. It’s a great event for baseball. So it does not surprise me. I think this is an event players want to participate in.”

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CLAYTON KERSHAW, A surprise addition to Team USA after retiring at the end of last year following 18 seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers, sought to participate in 2023 but was rebuffed shortly before the tournament when he was not cleared for insurance coverage. He’ll assume the role of emergency long reliever, used only in blowouts or extra innings. Unlike the other pitchers on Team USA, the retiree will report without a club concerned about his workload.

“There was no one that was going to be able to fill that spot for us,” DeRosa said. “There’s a chance Clayton throws multiple innings and there’s a chance Clayton doesn’t touch the ball in pool play. But just to have that emergency, to ask a current player to do that was unfair.”

Kershaw, an 11-time All-Star, three-time Cy Young Award winner and 2014 NL MVP, is by far the most decorated pitcher on the U.S. roster. But remove him from the equation and this pitching staff’s accolades still dwarf those of the 2023 group.

Three years ago, Team USA’s starting pitchers combined for seven All-Star Game appearances and zero Cy Young Awards going into the tournament. In 2022, 14 American pitchers received a Cy Young Award vote, 13 finished in the top 20 in ERA among qualified pitchers across the majors and 14 finished in the top 20 in FanGraphs WAR. None of them pitched for Team USA in 2023.

This year’s starters — not including Kershaw — have combined for nine All-Star Game appearances and three Cy Young Awards. Of the 16 American starters to finish in the top 20 in ERA last season, five — Skenes, Skubal, Boyd, Webb and Ryan — are on the staff. Skubal, Skenes and Webb finished in the top five in fWAR. Boyd was 18th and Ryan was tied for 21st.

Bednar, the closer for the New York Yankees, is the only pitcher on Team USA who also pitched in the 2023 WBC.

“This is our Olympics,” Hill said. “And it wasn’t Team USA as the last team standing last time. And I think that definitely resonated with a number of players and our staff. And I think that’s why there’s been a focus as we approach 2026 that we have unfinished business because we came up short. So we wanted to leave no stone unturned.”

For now, DeRosa envisions his rotation as Skubal, Skenes, Webb and Ryan, with Holmes, McLean and Boyd as backups.

“It’s like a perfect storm,” DeRosa said. “I just felt like guys were ready to do it and I felt like we could protect them. There’s no denying these games are real. These are postseason games when you’re in them. But we believe we can protect them.”

On the position player side, Judge leads a group that includes Cal Raleigh, Bobby Witt Jr., Kyle Schwarber, Corbin Carroll and Byron Buxton. The talent across the projected 30-man roster has made the U.S. a considerable favorite to win the tournament, according to DraftKings Sportsbook, followed by defending champion Japan and the Dominican Republic.

“I know they got to the championship game there with Japan, but seeing what happened last [time] just fuels you,” Judge said. “I just feel like we got the best country with the best players and we need to go out there and prove it on the biggest stage.”

Doing that starts on the mound, with the best starting rotation Team USA has ever assembled, a development that solidifies the progress the tournament has made since its inception in 2006.

“When I announced it, it was like, ‘We’ll get there when we get there. That’s an offseason thing to worry about,'” Skenes said. “And the focus this offseason has been getting ready to throw a whole lot of volume. And now that it’s getting closer, I’m thinking about it a little more, but it’s still pretty abstract.

“I think when I show up on March 1 and see everybody, it’s gonna be like, ‘All right. Let’s go.'”