The 2026 World Baseball Classic is underway, with the United States the last top contender to take the field as it faces Brazil on Friday in Pool B action from Daikin Park in Houston. Let’s break down what you might expect from the Americans and recommend a few futures wagers. Team USA is -4.5 on the run line with a huge total of 14.5 for the 8 p.m. ET first pitch.
Even though the U.S. has arguably the best left-hander in MLB in Detroit’s Tarik Skubal, the two-time reigning AL Cy Young Award winner, and the best right-hander in Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes, the 2025 NL Cy Young winner, manager Mark DeRosa is opting for Giants ace righty Logan Webb in Friday’s opener. He has looked good in two Cactus League outings spanning five innings, with seven strikeouts, zero walks, a 1.80 ERA and 0.40 WHIP.
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No MLB team truly wants its stars competing in the WBC for fear of injury; remember, then-Mets star closer Edwin Diaz suffered a season-ending injury while celebrating a win with his Puerto Rico teammates at the 2023 version. So DeRosa has to juggle how long his starting pitchers will go (not long), how stretched out they will be, their MLB team’s wishes, etc.
Skubal will pitch only in the second game and return to Tigers camp in Florida; I don’t blame him for being cautious as a pending free agent and looking at $400 million next winter. I’d expect a max of 55 pitches for Webb and any starter in pool play. He and Skenes have said they will stick around with the USA for the duration, so they should pitch again.
“There’s obviously guardrails for the tournament … pitch count-wise, but there’s also guardrails for guys having to throw on certain days to get ready for their team’s Opening Day,” DeRosa said this week.
As for the lineup, it is stacked. Bobby Witt Jr., Kyle Schwarber, Paul Goldschmidt and Will Smith are the lone position players returning from the 2023 squad that memorably lost in the final to Japan when Shohei Ohtani struck out then-Angels-teammate Mike Trout to secure victory. The general consensus of the ideal 2026 Team USA lineup looks something like this:
- SS Bobby Witt Jr. (R)
- 1B Bryce Harper (L)
- RF Aaron Judge (R)
- DH Kyle Schwarber (L)
- 3B Alex Bregman (R)
- C Cal Raleigh (S)
- LF Roman Anthony (L)
- CF Byron Buxton (R)
- 2B Brice Turang (L)
That lineup has combined for 26 All-Star selections and five MVP Awards. Judge, the three-time AL MVP, is the +800 favorite to win MVP of this event. Japan’s Shohei Ohtani is next at +1000 and then four more United States guys.
Team USA is a -800 favorite to win Pool B and should finish ahead of Mexico, Italy, Brazil and Great Britain – though we’d be the underdogs if that were a men’s World Cup group. Mexico likely has the second-most talent in the group and is the +600 second-favorite. I like USA first/Mexico second exact finish at -170.
That our Pool B is the winning pool of the tournament is the -115 favorite, but that’s solely on the United States, the -110 event favorite. The USA’s lone title came in 2017, when it beat Puerto Rico in the final. The Dominican Republic opened in 2023 as the favorite ahead of the U.S. (+275) and winner Japan (+300).
I actually like the DR this year at +400 as that lineup is even scarier than Team USA’s, with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Juan Soto sharing the shortest tournament MVP odds among Dominicans at +2500.
Brazil, which took a silver medal at the 2023 Pan American Games, makes its second appearance in the WBC after 2013, and it was unable to win a game then but did push Japan in one. The country earned the final spot this year by capturing a winner-take-all qualifier in March 2025 in Arizona. The clincher was a dramatic 6-4 win over Germany in the final.
There are no active MLB players on the Brazil roster — the nation has produced only five major-league players all-time, with the best-known being longtime catcher Yan Gomes.
Big-ticket offseason Mets signing Bo Bichette would have been eligible to play for Brazil, but his new team basically put the kibosh on that for health reasons and because he will be learning a new full-time position of third base in Queens. Three players on the roster are sons of former MLB players in Dante Bichette Jr. (also Bo’s brother), Joseph Contreras (José Contreras) and Lucas Ramirez (Manny Ramirez).
The 17-year-old Contreras, the youngest player in the tournament, is a right-handed pitcher from a Georgia high school and might be a first- or second-round pick in the 2026 MLB Draft but has committed to college baseball power Vanderbilt. Ramirez is wearing No. 24 for Brazil in honor of Manny but hits lefty, while pops was one of the great right-handed hitters in MLB history.
Probably Brazil’s most-feared hitter is 35-year-old Leonardo Reginatto, who played on the 2013 WBC team. He hit a career-high 16 homers in 2025 playing in the Mexican League. Reginatto spent 10 years in the MLB minor leagues, including four in Triple-A, but never reached the majors. Right-handed pitcher Eric Pardinho ranked among the Top 100 prospects in MLB in 2019 but never made it. Not clear who Brazil’s starting pitcher is tonight, but does it really matter?
I lean the Under 14.5 tonight simply as I’m sure the Brazilians start whomever their top guy is, and it will be a parade of relievers on both sides. All those big U.S. arms should keep Brazil fairly in check, so perhaps something like 10-3.
