Pete Alonso hit 40 home runs for the 101-win Mets last year. Kyle Schwarber hit 46 over the fence for the Phillies, and helped lead his club on a magical World Series run.
Tim Anderson has a .318 batting average and two All-Star nods over the past four years. Cedric Mullins has 46 homers and 64 stolen bases the past two seasons. Rising star Bobby Witt Jr. had 20 homers and 30 stolen bases as a rookie last year. Will Smith, with 49 homers the past two years and a career 129 OPS+, has few peers as a catcher.
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And on any given night, should Team USA reach the second week of the World Baseball Classic, five of those six guys will start the game on the bench. The other will DH.
That’s how good this roster is.
“We know that these guys are all great players,” Team USA general manager Tony Reagins told The Sporting News, “but we can only field nine at one time.”
The makeup of the expected crunch-time starting lineup is slightly ridiculous.
In the infield …
1B: Paul Goldschmidt, 2022 NL MVP
2B: Jeff McNeil, 2022 NL batting champion
SS: Trea Turner, fresh off signing his $300 million contract
3B: Nolan Arenado, 10-time Gold Glove winner
C: J.T. Realmuto, one of Smith’s few peers behind the plate
And in the outfield …
RF: Mookie Betts, former MVP, two-time runner-up
CF: Mike Trout, three-time MVP
LF: Kyle Tucker, 60 HR, 10.9 bWAR the past two years
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And now you start to understand the difficult playing-time decisions — and conversations about those decisions — that Reagins and manager Mark DeRosa and his staff will have to make once the WBC starts. Thing is, the groundwork for those conversations has been happening for a long time, with the decision-makers and the players.
“What I’ve told them is, ‘During pool play, I will do everything in my power to give you playing time and at-bats,” said DeRosa, who is also the co-host of “MLB Central” on MLB Network. “But when and if — hoping and praying we make it to Miami — we have to try and win the thing. And the guy who’s swinging the hot bat, who can help us the most in that moment, he’s going to play.’ And they’ve all agreed to that, no problem.”
They’ll play the matchups. They’ll use analytics — as much as possible, considering many impact players in the WBC won’t have MLB data available — and they’ll live in the moment as they make decisions based on giving themselves the best chance to win games.
But rest assured, pretty much every single player on this roster — OK, maybe not Trout, the team captain — has been told there’s a possibility that they’ll begin a win-or-go-home game on the bench. That’s going to be a new experience for a lot of these guys.
And that’s why communication is so important.
“If you can have transparent and candid conversations early on, it eliminates that potential of, when we get into the tournament, someone saying, ‘Wait, I thought it was going to be this way.’ Nope, we’re upfront,” Reagins said. “If you’re going to (play in the WBC), this is what the situation is, and if you’re in, we’d love to have you. That’s how we approach it. I’ve had very candid conversations with GMs and with coaches and with agents about what we want to try to accomplish.”
This isn’t a unique situation to the United States, of course. Other teams and their managers will have decisions that are equally tough.
Look at the Dominican Republic, for example. That team has three shortstops on its roster: Jeremy Pena, Willy Adames and Wander Franco. At third base, there’s Manny Machado and Rafael Devers. And it’s not as easy as giving one of those 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 among the favorites heading into the WBC. Making difficult playing-time decisions would be a small price to pay for a WBC championship.
