Dream Team: Building a USA roster around Aaron Judge for the 2026 World Baseball Classic

If Aaron Judge is saying yes, who’s going to say no?

Judge announced on Monday that he’s going to play for Team USA in the 2026 World Baseball Classic. He’ll serve as team captain, giving the team a bonafide superstar to build around. When Mike Trout announced he was going to play in 2023, other American All-Stars followed his lead. Now it’s Judge whose name carries as much weight as any American player, and it’s not hard to imagine other elite hitters lining up to play alongside him.

Whether pitchers will do the same is another question.

With Judge as the first official selection, though, ruminations on the American baseball Dream Team is on the table. So, what would such a roster look like a year from now?

We tried this exercise two years ago, but already key elements of that hypothetical roster are either slightly off or flat-out wrong. No Bobby Witt Jr.? Bryce Harper in the outfield? Alek Manoah in the rotation? Things can change in a hurry. This is our latest attempt.

WBC rosters can hold up to 30 players. We went with a split of 15 pitchers and 15 position players. It is both an impossible task, and one in which it’s hard to really go wrong.

Two years ago, Rutschman’s ascent to the top of the catching position felt inevitable and probably singular. J.T. Realmuto was the old guard, and Rutschman would eventually supplant him as the best American catcher. Today, it’s not so clear-cut. Rutschman is indeed one of the best catchers in baseball, but it’s Raleigh who leads the position in fWAR since 2022. San Francisco Giants catcher Patrick Bailey, with his strong framing numbers and extensive Team USA history as a teenager and in college, would be another interesting fit (Will Smith and Austin Wells are in the conversation, too). The U.S. team carried three catchers in the WBC in 2023, but for this exercise, it’s hard to justify a third catcher in place of so many other deserving hitters at other positions.

Harper was supposed to be on the 2023 WBC team but had to withdraw because of Tommy John surgery. He remains a strong fit for 2026, even at a first base position that’s loaded with alternatives. Three shortstops — Betts, Henderson and Witt — feel like obvious selections, and we can fit them into the regular lineup by playing Henderson at third and Betts at second. Every other infield roster spot is a matter of building a functional roster while creating room for different types of players.

It makes sense to carry a true third baseman, but that’s a wide-open field. Alex Bregman has considerable history with Team USA, Matt Chapman and Nolan Arenado are among the best of their generation, and Riley is a superstar in his prime. Hard to go wrong. Campbell is one of the game’s emerging young stars (and he’s versatile), while Donovan is a true super-utility player who gives this team extreme versatility (and he was a 3.2 fWAR player last season, so he’s pretty good in his own right).

If you’d rather just carry another elite shortstop (Trea Turner, Corey Seager, Dansby Swanson) or a huge DH-type bat (Kyle Schwarber, Brent Rooker, Pete Alonso) or a different super-utility option (Jordan Westburg, Tommy Edman, Brandon Lowe, Josh Smith) it would be hard to argue against those choices.

We know Judge is in, and Trout is just too iconic to ignore (and if he keeps hitting home runs like this, he might deserve a spot regardless). Carroll and Tucker also seem too good to omit. So that’s four spots filled without much second-guessing.

Merrill would give the team another left-handed hitter and an alternative to Carroll in center field. Could argue, instead, for Jarren Duran (with a ton of speed) or Brenton Doyle (right-handed bat with elite defense) or Steven Kwan (different kind of at-bat off the bench) to fill that spot. Wyatt Langford, Byron Buxton, Riley Greene and Ian Happ also come to mind, but how much mixing and matching — or pinch hitting — is this team really going to do?

The 2023 WBC team used its final bench spot on a young Witt, before he’d fully established himself in the big leagues. Witt was basically a speed option off the bench. He played in five games but got only two at-bats. The 2026 team could do something similar with Rays prospect Simpson, who’s blazing fast and stole 104 bases in the minors last season.

This is the most pie-in-the-sky element of our hypothetical Team USA roster, because the top American starting pitchers rarely participate in the WBC. Skenes, though, has a history with Team USA, including a couple of collegiate rosters. Greene, too, pitched for Team USA several times as a teenager. If those two could be enticed, would others follow their lead?

It’s probably wishful thinking, but frankly, the U.S. has an absurdly deep pool to choose from. Don’t like this group of six? How about Corbin Burnes, Shane McClanahan, Spencer Strider, Cole Ragans, Jackson Jobe, and Zac Gallen? Or maybe some combination of Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander and Clayton Kershaw as a kind of farewell performance before (potentially) retirement?

Team USA used only four starters in 2023 and only five in 2017 (one of those starters also pitched out of the bullpen). So, does this team need six starters? No. But would it be fun to see Crochet or Greene come blazing out of the bullpen to annihilate hitters for an inning? It sure would.

Relievers are notoriously unpredictable. When we tried two years ago to imagine a 2026 WBC roster, we included David Bednar and Scott Barlow, two then-elite relievers whose stock has fallen sharply. If we do this exercise six months from now, we might include Garrett Whitlock or Seth Halvorsen or Tyler Holton. For now, we’ll go with some of the obvious shutdown closers — there’s a ton of velocity here — plus a couple of emerging late-inning arms (Walker, Erceg) and a third lefty (Strahm). Among our immediate regrets is not finding room for Pete Fairbanks, A.J. Puk and Griffin Jax.