World Baseball Classic: The Tarik Skubal drama shows the WBC has finally arrived – and has created a new challenge for MLB

Major League Baseball might be finding out that it has created a monster – a glorious, wonderful monster – that has outgrown its tidy enclosure.

Every three years, MLB and the Major league Baseball Players Association host the World Baseball Classic, baseball’s answer to the FIFA World Cup. While it remains a relatively youthful tournament, having only started in 2006, it is growing up fast. But if the experience of Tarik Skubal at this year’s tournament is any indication, baseball is facing a new reality: a wildly entertaining exhibition has become actually important.

Skubal, the ace pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, went into this year‘s tournament expecting to pitch one game for Team USA before he would leave and head back to spring training to get ready for the regular season. After just a few innings of pitching for Team USA against Great Britain on Saturday, Skubal appeared to be moved. When asked by Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal if he plan to make another start, Skubal couldn’t quite bring himself to say no. It’s suddenly seemed like deviating from the plan in the name of competing for the Stars and Stripes was a real possibility.

It is such a sea change moment in the history of the WBC, that it is sort of hard to explain.

First, you have to know why the WBC is a complicated endeavor for teams and players as it is.

Players participating in the tournament must leave their Major League clubs during spring training to compete for their national teams. It’s a sacrifice some franchises are willing to make to boost baseball’s international popularity and satisfy their own players happy.

However, it also takes away from crucial time that they would otherwise be spending jelling with the teammates who they will rely on for the next six months. It also takes them away from the trainers and team doctors who monitor their health and preparation as they ramp up for the grueling regular season.

For many American players – especially pitchers – the tournament has long viewed as too high a risk. Pitchers are especially injury prone when they throw too hard and too much early in the spring. As a result, the game’s top American arms usually stay in spring training, leaving Team USA to fill its rotation wuth and some of the baseball’s lesser lights toeing the rubber for the American team.

This has rarely been the case for the rest of the nations in the tournament, who put out their best nine players in every game that they can. For years, this has meant that the American team was made up of some big stars and some average players, because a sizable contingent of the best American players were more concerned about protecting their regular season for the big league club. After all, that’s who pays the bills.

This lack of consistency has largely led to Team USA underperforming relative to expectations. The Americans have won it once, in 2017, and made the finals in 2023. Otherwise, it’s a series of second round and semifinal knockouts for the country that actually invented the game.

But, this year‘s team was different from the start.

New York Yankees star Aaron Judge was the first player to agree to play for Team USA, and he helped recruit a sort of baseball Dream Team as the Americans look to avenge their loss in the final three years ago to Team Japan. That included bringing two of the games best pitchers, Paul Skenes and Skubal, who would come and participate in some form. It was expected that Skubal would throw three innings against Great Britain and then head back to Lakeland, Florida, where the rest of his Tigers teammates are getting ready for the season.

But, there seemed to be a moment of realization for Skubal about exactly what it means to play for one’s country. The pure agony on his face as he contemplated whether to stick with his plan or suit up again for the American team was obvious. And he wasn’t going to make the decision quickly, instead waiting until the emotion of the moment wore off to make a final call.

That Skubal would even consider playing again with the Americans with all he has to lose is testament to the growing importance of this tournament. The Tigers ace is set to be a free agent after this season and could be in line to get one of the biggest contracts in MLB history. His team is attempting to win a World Series after a disappointing end to the 2025 campaign. He has won the Cy Young award as the American League’s best pitcher for the last two years, and is easily the betting favorite to do it a third time.

An injury sustained while pitching for Team USA would be catastrophic for Skubal’s bottom line and the Tigers’ World Series aspirations. But on Saturday, Skubal discovered what so many other players from other nations had already learned: There is simply no substitute for representing your country.

Scenes from across the tournament have illustrated exactly what this competition means to players from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Japan, Taiwan, and so many others. Tears have been shed, throats have been screamed hoarse. The global passion for this tournament is only growing, and it appears the game’s elite American stars are fully on board.

So, why would this be a problem?

The timing of the tournament means that the WBC will always run into the preparation period for the coming season. Pitchers are not allowed, by the rules of the tournament, to fully extend themselves in search of victory. Instead, they are limited to a certain amount of innings per game, so they do not injure themselves and hurt their professional employers.

This creates a frustrating half-in, half-out dynamic. It’s hard to imagine the FIFA World Cup being played when the some of the biggest players in the world can only play 30 minutes at a time. And for competitors like Skubal, the desire to treat a WBC game like a playoff game is obvious.

Now that stars like Skubal are facing the realization that they might be willing to risk hundreds of millions of dollars to compete for their country, Major League Baseball might find itself needing to reassess how the WBC is scheduled and played. Putting it in spring training was always a neat solution, but don’t the game’s best players deserve to give their all in a competition that will bring glory and pride to their home nations?

Some have suggested moving the two-week tournament to the middle of the summer to replace the All-Star break. Others have suggested splitting it up and having pool play in spring training and the knockout rounds later on in the summer.

Regardless, the tournament can no longer be dismissed as a mere exhibition designed to market the sport abroad. While the WBC was initial conceived as a way to spread the sport abroad, make no mistake, other nations are not showing up to the WBC for exhibitions. The passion on display makes it clear that they are playing to win and they are approaching these games with a fervor that rivals, and perhaps surpasses, a playoff game and maybe even a World Series game.

That intensity is a direct challenge to the Americans. It’s as if the rest of the baseball world is asking, “We’re all in. Are you?”

Perhaps Skubal’s difficult decision – he ultimately chose to stick to the plan and will leave Team USA and return to Detroit after Monday’s game against Mexico – is a sign that American players are finally ready to push their chips to the center of the table. And, with labor negotiations between the MLB and the MLBPA looming after the 2026 season, you can bet that some of the WBC’s top players are going to want Major League Baseball to make it easier for them to give every ounce of energy that they can to this growing tournament.