If the 2026 World Baseball Classic (WBC) is experiencing difficulties, expectations are high. Three years ago, the WBC pitted two teammates and future Hall of Famers against each other in a decisive at-bat, and it ended on a note few could surpass, with the most exciting baseball player in history coming out victorious. The norm now is not that the WBC will necessarily end in the same dramatic fashion, but that the success of previous displays will enhance future productions. Sure, 2023 had a star-studded roster, but with the involvement to solidify the WBC as a serious business, this could truly be the best of the best show.
This makes every bit of negative news about this year’s WBC participation feel like a blow to the tournament’s hard-won legitimacy. First, there are insurance-related issues at the 2023 WBC, with several high-profile injuries preventing some stars from participating. Puerto Rico was particularly disastrous as despite Bad Bunny’s best efforts, Francisco Lindor and Carlos Correa were only two of the eight players initially deemed unavailable.
That will already be enough to give the competition some flavor. Del Raton MiguelitoBut worse than the uninsured are those who appear to be evaders. It’s one thing to force a player to not attend. It’s another matter if they don’t seem committed to the cause. Tarik Skubal was an example of the latter as a contestant who was rarely a contestant. The Detroit Tigers’ ace is one of the best pitchers in baseball and has won his second consecutive AL Cy Young Award. He’s also in a contract year, which explains that his only planned WBC appearance for the United States, at least according to Bob Nightengale, is a needless 55 pitches against Great Britain before returning to spring training. (It’s not clear whether Atlanta’s Jurikson Profar’s suspension for PEDs for the second time in the past year, preventing him from playing for the Netherlands national team, fits into this dialectic.)
But the idea that quality foreshadows seriousness has always been seen as a misunderstanding of the order of things. People become interested in events not because they suddenly start to matter in a vacuum. Rather, the quality or presence of an event is (largely) irrelevant as long as people choose to pay attention to it. That said, the WBC will be a serious enterprise as long as viewers and players alike can believe it is a serious enterprise, and if Aaron Judge speaking as Captain America is any indication (or even Skubal’s half-participation in a contract year), the mirage will persist as long as the event itself delivers.
If there’s a knock against the WBC, it’s that any international sporting competition at this stage could potentially be sour. Israel is participating. If the clear favorite, the United States, wins, unfortunately someone like Trump (either a polite administration bastard or a regular MAGA baseball fanatic) is likely to step in. The WBC also boasts a broader definition of eligible national representatives than the Olympics, which sometimes blurs the boundaries of countries outside of the United States. For example, it’s like seeing Jazz Chisholm Jr. captain the Great Britain team because he was born in the Bahamas, a Commonwealth country. The concept of Captain Chisholm Jr. is interesting, but not particularly unique. The Dutch team likewise bears the hallmarks of its long colonial past, as players from Curaçao, Saint Maarten and Aruba, such as Xander Bogaerts, have long represented the Netherlands in international competitions.
The final moments of the 2023 WBC were defined by sheer star power, but selling the tournament from the front had little to do with it. No one who watched the last rotation should obsess over Skubal’s participation. The WBC is primarily for strangers, unexpected heroes. It’s for the Lars Nootbaars of the past and perhaps for the Italian of today, Aaron Nolas. Before you take part in the best matchups, you’ll have to witness what happens in Italy, Brazil and Australia. Surprisingly, it is made up almost entirely of Australian-born players. The all-day experience of spring training baseball is emulated to the extreme across time zones. The first match of the WBC match between Chinese Taipei and Australia takes place tonight at 10 PM ET.
In yesterday’s game between Puerto Rico and the Boston Red Sox, the Red Sox found several players from a weak Puerto Rico team. One of them, a minor leaguer named Erik Riviera, visited the mound while still wearing his Red Sox uniform while pitching in Puerto Rico. There’s nothing more baseball than that.
