Team USA is not playing around. The World Baseball Classic is still 10 months away, but USA Baseball is making it clear that another second-place finish is not acceptable. Yankees slugger Aaron Judge -- in the midst of another MVP Award-caliber season -- was named as the team’s captain for next year’s tournament and on Tuesday, USA got its ace: Pirates starter Paul Skenes committed to the ballclub, giving the national team its most dominant pitcher in the tournament’s history.
I had a chance to speak with new Team USA general manager Michael Hill about his approach to building the team and its star-studded roster ahead of next year. Here is that interview, edited and condensed for length and readability.
MLB: What is the mindset going into next year’s World Baseball Classic?
Michael Hill: Our approach is that we want all hands on deck. There's a ton of excitement. The 2023 event was amazing, but we came up short as a country, as a team, as a nation, and all of our American players are on notice. This is America's pastime. We are the best in the world, and our goal is to go out there and prove it in 2026. That's our goal, that's Mark DeRosa's goal.
It’s a cumulative effort. We’re taking the feedback from an incredibly talented, experienced coaching staff, and really, beyond Judge, the entire country is our playing field right now. We are still early in the process. We don't have to finalize any provisional rosters until the end of the season, and then our 30 [man roster is not due] until February. We have the best players in the world. We're going to let them go out and basically audition and show us that they want to be a part of this.
MLB: What interested you in taking on this job?
Hill: I was around it in 2023, being the senior vice president of on-field operations. My team was at all the venues, and we were making sure everything was running smoothly from a baseball operations standpoint, and working closely with our umpiring group for every game that was played here in the States in 2023. From that standpoint, I got to feel it, live it, breathe it, and feel that disappointment of coming up short. So, when the opportunity was presented to me to be a part of it in 2026, I was all in because obviously, I'm a proud American. I've dedicated my life and career to baseball, and I've got a World Series to my credit. I think this would just be an amazing addition to my resume, and I would be extremely proud to say that I was able to don the red, white and blue, and represent my country and bring home a gold medal, a championship for the United States.
MLB: Mark DeRosa is back as the manager. What impressed you about him?
Hill: I don't know if people know this, but when I was president of baseball operations for the Marlins, I interviewed Mark when we had an opening. We ended up going with Don Mattingly, because we went with experience, but I was incredibly impressed with his knowledge of the game, his passion for the game, and getting to be around him in 2023 I saw all of those things. I saw how his players responded to him.
I think experience is always the best teacher. And when we were considering potential managers, the fact that he had been through it and had gleaned things from going through it in 2023 made him the perfect choice for 2026.
MLB: Aaron Judge was then named to be the captain of the team. What does this mean for USA Baseball?
Hill: Just shows that the MVP of the league and arguably the best player in the game of baseball is all in for this tournament. It just speaks volumes to every other player who may or may not be committed to this tournament that we have arguably the best player committed. If you have pride in your country and you want to support this team and help this team go out and win a championship, we have our best committed. You need to be willing to get on board as well. He was the obvious choice.
MLB: You followed that up by announcing Paul Skenes’ participation. He’s arguably the best pitcher to play for Team USA in the tournament’s history.
Hill: From the beginning and talking with Mark, we wanted our best. We want to give ourselves every opportunity to win gold and bring home a championship. We know that pitching sets the tone, and so for us to get the reigning National League Rookie of the Year and arguably one of the top starting pitchers in our game, just shows that we've got our players in the same mindset. They're committed to this tournament and committed to doing their part to help us bring home a championship.
MLB: Skenes aside, pitching tends to be the most difficult position to fill. How do you plan to go about building the staff?
Hill: Again, the beauty of bringing Mark back and bringing Andy [Pettitte] back as the pitching coach is that they're coming with those experiences from 2023. Obviously we want our best pitching, but I think as you look and our schedule has been released, you build it to get through the tournament successfully. We have two games, and then we have an off day, and then we have two more games before you get to the knockout round. I think that that helps in giving you a landscape of how you want to build your pitching staff.
When I call my other GMs in the game, I’ll be able to speak to them and they’ll know fully well that I'm going to take care of their players, their pitchers, as if they were my own. Any GM who I'm going to talk to, they know me because I've been in this game over 30 years. They know that I'm going to do right by their players and give us the best opportunity to win, but also knowing that we're going to follow all of the protocols put in place and safeguards to make sure that their players get back to them healthy and ready for the 2026 season.
MLB: How do you balance the team? With so many superstars, how do you build a team and not just have a fantasy roster?
Hill: The thing that makes so many great players great is that they're great teammates. That's something that is important to both Mark and I. We want great players, but we want great teammates as well, because when you are assembling a team, a lot of times you’ve got to check your ego at the door if you're going to achieve your ultimate goal. Our ultimate goal is to win a championship. When you look at the roster that we ultimately put together, it's going to be extremely talented, but it's going to be extremely selfless, and it's going to include players that will do their part, support one another and do whatever the team needs to help us win a championship.
MLB: Japan is the only team to win multiple times and they have three World Baseball Classic trophies. Have you learned anything from watching them?
Hill: The biggest thing that jumped out to me since the first tournament is that Japan always has their best players. It's never a question about their best players supporting their country, it's not even a discussion. We haven't always had our best participants in the event. If anything, I think that's something for our players to take notice of. We have countries whose players are important to them, and they go out there to support their nation. It's not a question for those other countries, whereas, for whatever reason, we haven't always got our best. But I hope that's over. Japan took the championship in 2023 and I hope that our players took notice. If we're going to claim to be the best in the world, I think we need to put up or shut up. We need to go show the world that we are the best, and you only do that on the field with your best players.
MLB: Is there a message you want the players to know?
Hill: The message is this is for our country. We're going out there to compete for the red, white and blue. We're going to have an exciting team, and it's going to be a talented team and a team that this entire country is going to be proud of because we're going to play the game the right way. We're going to play it to win and we're not going to stop until that last out is made and Team USA is coming out on top.