Yankees Sending 13 Players to World Baseball Classic

By Sal Maiorana

March 2026

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Sal Maiorana shares his thoughts on the Yankees. Here is an edited version of Sal's latest article.

For Sal's complete analysis on the New York Yankees, you can subscribe to Sal Maiorana's free Pinstripe People Newsletter at https://salmaiorana.beehiiv.com/subscribe.

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As I said last week, I don’t pay any attention to whether the Yankees win or lose spring training games, but I’ll say this week that winning is certainly better than losing, no matter what time of year it is, and the Yankees have sure done a lot of winning so far. Of course, now they’re going to lose about half their team for the next couple weeks as they head off to play in the World Baseball Classic. I have a few thoughts on that, among other things, in today’s newsletter. Lets get to it.

As we just saw at the Winter Olympics in Italy, playing any sport for your country is an extremely cool experience, and in some cases for those Olympians it’s a dream come true. For that reason alone, I have no problem with the World Baseball Classic which will be contested for the seventh time since it was conceived back in 2006.

For the players who play for their home country - or in some cases play for a country in which they have some remote tie to which gives them the best chance to be involved with the tournament - it is obviously an honor and a privilege. 

No one is mistaking the WBC for the Olympics, but it’s the closest baseball can come to providing a jingoistic, Olympic-like event, and if you’ve watched any of the WBC in in the past, you see how much it means to the players to wear their flags on their sleeves.

However, from the time the games begin later this week until their conclusion with the championship game on March 17 in Miami, every team sending players to the tournament will be holding its collective breath and hoping that they get through the event healthy and return to spring training ready to move on with preparation for the upcoming season.

Think back to 2023 when Mets closer Edwin Diaz suffered a season-ending knee injury at the WBC. The Mets were coming off a 101-win season in 2022 and felt they were a legit World Series contender in 2023. Instead, Diaz went down, the Mets bullpen posted a 4.45 ERA with just 34 saves, and they missed the postseason because they won only 75 games. That’s the true definition of the WBC nightmare, and there have been other situations where players got hurt and missed regular-season MLB games.

Nowhere will lungs be more taxed than in Yankees camp where GM Brian Cashman and manager Aaron Boone will be worrying about the health of 13 players in the organization who just left to compete in the WBC, 10 of whom will be on the Yankees’ roster and three others ticketed for the minor leagues.

No. 1 on the list, of course, is Aaron Judge, the player the Yankees cannot lose for any length of time. He will be joined on Team USA by first baseman/DH Paul Goldschmidt, pitcher Ryan Yarbrough, and closer David Bednar, Reliever Camilo Doval, catcher Austin Wells and utility man Amed Rosario will play for the Dominican Republic; reliever Fernando Cruz and minor-league pitcher Elmer Rodriguez are playing for Puerto Rico; second baseman Jazz Chisholm and minor league pitcher Brendan Beck are on Great Britain’s team; shortstop Jose Caballaro is playing for Panama; and minor league pitcher Harrison Cohen is on Team Israel.

In case you’re wondering, Wells’ mother has Dominican Republic heritage, while Chisholm is eligible to play for Great Britain because he was born in the Bahamas which is a former British colony. Hey, whatever it takes to participate, I guess.

In order for NHL players to participate in the Olympics, the league shut down for nearly three weeks in February and it was forced to play a tightly condensed schedule before and now after the Games in order to get the entire 82-game regular season completed. Not ideal. 

Baseball could potentially do something similar by holding the WBC at midseason and turn the All-Star break into a two-week window, but it has balked against that idea, opting for spring training. And that’s the right call. I wouldn’t want the regular season paused for two weeks, and by playing the WBC in March, it gives interested fans something far more entertaining to watch than mind-numbingly boring exhibition games.

Really, the only negative is the injury risk, but here’s the thing: Players can get hurt just as easily in a spring game or during a back field workout as they could in the WBC. As Yankees fans, we certainly know this. Just the other day, Cody Bellinger tweaked his back. The tournament takes place every three years, so let’s just all take a breath and deal with it and hope that everyone - especially Judge - gets through it just fine.

Judge told reporters down in Tampa that several members of Team USA are on a group chat and they were doing plenty of texting as the Americans won the hockey gold medal in a thriller against Canada.

“We were all kind of talking in our group text together,” Judge said. “Everybody was (talking) about how fired up we are and how special it’s going to be. I look at it the same, just proud of our country. Those boys put on a good show, put on a good fight and handled business. Now it’s our turn.”

Spencer Jones doing what he does

Once again, the mammoth outfielder with the Ruthian swing is creating a stir in spring training with his tape-measure home runs. And once again, when he’s not hitting those moon shots, he’s usually striking out. In the five games he has played, Jones has come up 12 times and he has three hits (all homers), two walks and four strikeouts.

Every time he hits a home run, fans scream that the Yankees have to find a place on the team for him. But how is that possible? The outfield is set with Judge, Bellinger and Trent Grisham, and the DH spot is clogged, as usual, with Giancarlo Stanton when he’s healthy, and then a combination of Judge, Goldschmidt and Ben Rice when Stanton is either hurt (it’s only a matter of time) or in need of a day off.

The Yankees are having a tough enough time finding a roster spot for Jasson Dominguez as the fourth outfielder because he’s not really a functional depth piece due to his lack of position flexibility and his continued struggles against left-handed pitching. So, unless there’s a spate of injuries, I don’t see how Jones can make the team. And lets be honest here, for as tantalizing a player as he is, until he cuts down his absurd strikeout rate, he can’t be relied upon.

Randal Grichuk signs minor-league deal

This one cracked me up because the 34-year-old well-traveled outfielder/DH has long been a player I’ve despised. I don’t know him personally, but I do know I’ve ripped off a bunch of curse words in his direction because throughout his career he has routinely killed the Yankees, no matter what team he was playing for.

Grichuk has played for the Cardinals, Blue Jays, Rockies, Diamondbacks, Angels and Royals during his 12-year career, and for the most part he’s been a productive hitter with pop in his bat as he has 212 home runs and a .763 OPS.

A good bit of that damage has come against the Yankees. He has played 68 games against New York and he has 18 home runs, 35 RBI and an .825 OPS against them. The 18 homers are his second-most against a single opponent (he has hit 22 against the Orioles). 

As I discussed above, the Yankees outfield and DH spots are accounted for so I don’t see a path for Grichuk to make the team unless there’s a bunch of injuries. But given the torture he has inflicted, it was worth a look-see, if for no other reason than if he’s on the Yankees, he can’t kill them.

Ryan Weathers had a nice debut

One of the key moves the Yankees made in the offseason - frankly, one of the only meaningful moves they made - was acquiring hard-throwing lefty Ryan Weathers from the Marlins at the cost of four minor-leaguers. Knowing they were starting the season without Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon and Clarke Schmidt in the rotation, they needed help and they took a chance on Weathers who has battled injuries ever since he debuted in 2021 with the Padres.

Early last week in the only start he has made this spring, Weathers dominated the Nationals as he went 3.2 scoreless innings allowing just one hit with no walks and five strikeouts. He threw 49 pitches, 32 for strikes, and his fastball topped out at 99.8 mph which is stunning for this early in camp.

“I felt really good,” Weathers said. “I feel like the command is starting to get back to where I used to be, and I came out feeling healthy. Anytime I can stay healthy after pitching, that’s a good day for me.”

Weathers, the son of former Yankees pitcher David Weathers who was on the 1996 World Series-winning team, was San Diego’s first-round draft pick in 2018 (No. 7 overall). He pitched in 30 games as a rookie, 18 as a starter, but since then, the most games he’s pitched in a season is 16 with Miami in 2024. Last year he made just eight starts for the Marlins because of a variety of ailments.

Now 26, Weathers has pitched in just 70 MLB games (55 starts) and has an ugly 4.93 career ERA and 1.384 WHIP, but the stuff is electric and if he gets it together, he can help the Yankees cover one of their open rotation spots.

“He’s got great stuff, obviously, but watching him move around - he's a good athlete,” Boone said. “I think that's something that's stood out to me a little bit. He seems to be fitting in real well. And hopefully, he thrives here.”