He’s getting a second chance to strike gold in the World Baseball Classic

The first time Mark DeRosa led Team USA in the World Baseball Classic, it brought home silver, losing in the 2023 championship game to Japan 3-2. The United States won gold in the previous Classic, in 2017. (USA Baseball)

By Brendan Kuty / The Athletic

Getting a little emotional was not in Mark DeRosa’s plans. He was sitting next to Aaron Judge at the dais in a room filled with reporters and TV cameras at Yankee Stadium earlier this month. He was announcing that Judge, a New York Yankees outfielder, would be the U.S. team’s captain for the 2026 World Baseball Classic. But he was thinking about his family and about growing up in New Jersey, just a half-hour’s drive from the Bronx. He figured he was going to stand to the side during the event.

“Next thing I know,” he said, “I’m on the podium, and I’m like: ‘Oh, my God. This is awesome.’”

Such is life for DeRosa, the U.S. team’s first two-time manager in World Baseball Classic history.

The first time DeRosa led the squad, it brought home silver, losing in the 2023 championship game to Japan 3-2. The United States won gold in the previous World Baseball Classic, in 2017.

“We were one run away,” DeRosa said. “I plan on righting that wrong.”

It was also the only previous time DeRosa, 50, who co-hosts “MLB Central” on MLB Network, had coached professionally, though he played parts of 16 seasons in the major leagues. He said that he “politicked hard to get a chance to do it again” and that he “couldn’t be more excited or more humbled” for his second stint.

Last time, he said, he took the helm late in the process of building the roster and the coaching staff. This time, DeRosa said, he wanted to be around from Step 1.

“Building a roster out with Mike Hill,” he said, referring to the team’s general manager. “Building a coaching staff out. Knowing what I would do differently if given another opportunity. Knowing what the players wanted the first time through and what we were able to give them and not give them in that process. I wanted to right all those wrongs. That was the biggest thing for me.”

DeRosa said he hopes to help build the roster with the thought that “this is not a marathon, this is a complete sprint.” He said he wants to make sure the bench is more versatile “to have options, if need be, to combat some of the other countries’ moves from a bullpen standpoint.”

Pitching was on his mind, too. The World Baseball Classic starts in early March and lasts about three weeks. Typically, pitchers are not built up to regular-season workloads until spring training ends in late March. That has been a problem.

“If you’re going to do this, you’ve got to ramp up a little bit quicker than what’s being done,” he said. “Especially from a bullpen point of view. There were quite a few guys that during the last time, if they pitched, they needed two days off until they pitched again. There were only one or two guys down in the bullpen that could come in with men on base at that time during spring training. It really handcuffed what we were able to do, and understandably so.”

When the U.S. team traveled to Miami for the 2023 semifinals and finals, the coaches knew they were not going to use Nick Martinez to start a game. So they sent him back to the San Diego Padres’ spring training. Japan knew it was not going to use Yu Darvish, Martinez’s Padres teammate, as a starter, too. But it kept him and used him in the eighth inning of the championship game.

“We were loyal to the parent clubs and how they wanted their pitchers to be used and ramped up to get ready for the season,” DeRosa said. “I can’t speak for the other countries, but it certainly appeared different.”

The U.S. team “honored all of it,” DeRosa said, when it came to working with MLB teams on how to best use and protect their players so that they would be ready for opening day.

Asked if he hoped players were going to show up ready to do what it took to compete at the highest level possible for the World Baseball Classic, he said, “Exactly.”

“Honor the commitment,” he said. “Honor the parent club. But at the end of the day, if you’re going to commit to being on this roster, there’s a reason. This thing speeds up on you fast.” He added, “You’ve got to be ready to go.”

DeRosa leaned on a lot of his connections throughout the game the first time he managed the U.S. team, but in particular, he picked the brain of Hall of Fame manager Jim Leyland, who guided the club to gold in 2017. He also cited the St. Louis Cardinals’ president of baseball operations, John Mozeliak, and the Los Angeles Angels’ general manager, Perry Minasian, as big influences.

In addition to DeRosa, the U.S. team will feature nine coaches, including Skip Schumaker as bench coach. DeRosa called him “an X’s and O’s guy where I’m more of a big picture guy.” He added that he was particularly tight with the team’s assistant managers, Brian McCann and Michael Young. The team’s pitching coach will be Andy Pettitte.

“I’m honored and humbled to do this again, but it’ll never be about me,” he said. “It’ll be about the players and them going out and performing and them putting U.S.A. across their chest. I find validation in creating an awesome environment for them to come into and build relationships and go compete and represent our country. That’s what I get the most joy out of.”

DeRosa said naming Judge the next captain of the U.S. team was particularly exciting for him. During the news conference, he kept thinking about his late father and how proud his mother and older brother would be of him. He was thinking about how he would take his 15-year-old son around the team to see how some of the best players in the world prepare.

“That’s the first time I’ve really been borderline choked up,” he said, “and a lot more of that had to do with being a kid from New Jersey being on the Yankees podium with the greatest Yankees player in the game. That was kind of a full-circle moment, me thinking of my dad and my grandfather.”