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Aaron Judge is set to wear the captain’s “C” for Team USA at the 2026 World Baseball Classic, a familiar role for the two-time American League MVP who already holds that title for the New York Yankees.
U.S. manager Mark DeRosa, returning for a second stint as manager of Team USA, made the announcement Monday.
Judge replaces Mike Trout as captain after the Los Angeles Angels outfielder led Team USA during the 2023 tournament that ended in heartbreak. The Americans came up just short of defending their title, falling to Japan in a tense 3-2 championship game that ended with Shohei Ohtani striking out Trout to clinch the title for Japan.
Judge, 33, is the first player officially named on the U.S. roster. He’s had a scorching start to the 2025 MLB season. Entering Monday, the Yankees star was batting .357 with a major-league-leading 20 RBIs and six home runs, tied for the top mark in baseball with San Francisco’s Wilmer Flores.
Since the World Baseball Classic began in 2006, the U.S. has had mixed results. In 2017, the team won the WBC title for the first time by defeating Puerto Rico in the championship game
That championship run, capped by a dominant victory over Puerto Rico, marked a turning point for American participation, with more star players committing to the event in the years since.
The World Baseball Classic has grown from relative obscurity into a global spectacle, with its ever increasing popularity turning it into big business. The 2023 WBC smashed attendance and viewership records, as the showdown between Japan and the United States drew an audience of tens of millions around the world.
For Major League Baseball, the WBC has become a major focus of their push to continue to grow the sport internationally, delivering both a lucrative revenue stream and a stage to showcase the game to new fans. With a superstar like Judge leading the charge for Team USA, the buzz around the next tournament figures to be even bigger.
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