MLB's Rob Manfred pushes for more star pitchers in next WBC

MIAMI — The World Baseball Classic, which has produced a string of exhilarating games and enthusiastic crowds, will «100 percent» return in 2026, Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred said Tuesday, moments before Team USA and Japan squared off in the championship game from LoanDepot Park.

Before then, Manfred said, he would like to see more stars playing in the tournament, particularly on the pitching side.

«It's great the guys that we have,» Manfred told a small scrum of reporters, «but I'd like to see pitching staffs that are of the same quality as our position players.»

A long list of star position players decorated rosters throughout the World Baseball Classic, but a lot of the sport's best pitchers either did not participate or faced tight restrictions regarding their usage, especially in the late stages of the tournament.

The volatility of pitcher health, coupled by the timing of an event that is playing its most important games at a time when pitchers navigate strict schedules in preparation for the season, has made it difficult for national teams to deploy arms at appropriate times. MLB hopes to convince major league teams to be more cooperative with their pitchers in future events.

«It's not lobbying,» Manfred said. «It's having facts to support it — that pitching in high-leverage situations like these are, that actually helps players develop.»

Moving the event, either to the middle of the regular season or the end of it, is unlikely, a stance both Manfred and Tony Clark, head of the MLB Players Association, agree on.

«We have talked about timing until your head hurts,» Manfred said. «It's just no perfect time. We can't really do it during the playoffs because so many players would be down. We have