2023 World Baseball Classic: Playing-time decisions won’t be easy for Mark DeRosa with loaded USA roster
Pete Alonso hit 40 home runs for the Mets with 101 wins last year. Kyle Schwarber hit 46 over the fence for the Phillies and helped lead his club to a magical World Series run.
Tim Anderson has a .318 batting average and two All-Star nods in the past four years. Cedric Mullins has hit 46 homers and 64 stolen bases over the past two seasons. Rising star Bobby Witt Jr. hit 20 home runs and 30 stolen bases as a rookie last year. Will Smith has few peers as a catcher with 49 homers in the last two years and a career 129 OPS+.
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And on any given night, should Team USA make it to week two of the World Baseball Classic, five of those six guys will start the game on the bench. The other will be DH.
That’s how good this list is.
“We know these guys are all great players,” Team USA general manager Tony Reagins told The Sporting News, “but we can only field nine at a time.”
The composition of the expected Crunch Time starting lineup is a bit ridiculous.
In the inner field…
1B: Paul Goldschmidt, 2022 NL MVP
2 B: Jeff McNeil, 2022 NL batting champion
SS: Trea Turner just signed his $300 million contract
3B: Nolan Arenado, 10-time Gold Glove winner
C: JT Realmuto, one of Smith’s few colleagues behind the plate
And in the outfield…
HR: Mookie Betts, former MVP, two-time runner-up
CF: Mike Trout, three-time MVP
LF: Kyle Tucker, 60 HR, 10.9 bWAR for the past two years
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And now you’re beginning to understand the tough gametime decisions — and conversations about those decisions — that Reagins and manager Mark DeRosa and his staff will have to make once the WBC begins. The fact of the matter is that the foundations for these conversations with the decision makers and the players are being laid for a long time.
“What I told them is, ‘During the pool game, I’m going to do everything in my power to give you game time and bats,'” said DeRosa, who is also the co-host of “MLB Central” on the MLB Network. “But when and if – we hope and pray we make it to Miami – we have to try and win the thing. And the guy brandishing the hot bat that can help us the most at that moment will play.’ And they all agreed to that, no problem.”
They will play the matchups. They’ll use analytics — as much as possible, considering many Impact players in the WBC don’t have MLB data available — and they’ll live in the moment while making decisions based on seeing the best opportunity for themselves to give win games.
But rest assured, pretty much every single player in that roster — OK, maybe not Trout, the team captain — has been told there’s a chance they’ll start a win-or-go-home game on the bench. This will be a new experience for many of these guys.
And that’s why communication is so important.
“If you can have transparent and open conversations early on, it eliminates the potential for someone at the start of the tournament to say, ‘Wait, I thought it was going to be like this.’ No, we’re open,” Reagins said. “If you go (play in the WBC), that’s the situation and if you’re in, we’d love to have you. Here’s how we do it. I’ve had very open conversations with GMs, trainers and agents about what we’re trying to achieve.”
Of course, this is not a unique situation in the United States. Other teams and their managers will have to make similarly difficult decisions.
Take the Dominican Republic, for example. This team has three shortstops on their roster: Jeremy Pena, Willy Adames and Wander Franco. At third base there’s Manny Machado and Rafael Devers. And it’s not that easy to give one of these guys DH at-bats, because Nelson Cruz — one of the best DHs in MLB history and owner of many big WBC hits — is there too.
There’s a reason the Dominican Republic and USA are favorites heading into the WBC. Making difficult game-time decisions would be a small price to pay for a WBC championship.