The World Baseball Classic will return for its sixth edition in March 2026, with organizers concluding spring training remains a better time than after the World Series or in the middle of the major league season.
Since its launch in 2006, the WBC has been played in March, ahead of club opening day in MLB, Japan and South Korea.
Speaking before Tuesday night's final between the United States and Japan, Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said MLB owners and general managers have to be pursuaded to make more star pitchers available to national teams.
Many MLB teams blocked pitchers from participating, wanting them to concentrate on preparing for the season's start.
“From a competitive perspective, I think the most important thing is we’re going to need to continue to work, particularly with our clubs, about pitching,” I’d like to see pitching staffs that are of the same quality as our position players.”
Two All-Stars players got hurt during the WBC. Mets closer Edwin Díaz injured a knee during a postgame celebration with Puerto Rico last week and had season-ending surgery. Houston second baseman Jose Altuve broke his right thumb when he was hit by a pitch and needs an operation that will keep him sidelined for a period still to be announced.
“I think maybe the best testimony to it is how the players, after the unfortunate injury that Díaz had, how the players came out and spoke in support of the tournament,” Manfred said. “It’s an indication that they really, really care about the event.”
He said the WBC will continue to take on the insurance of players participating with their national teams.
“You can’t play this event without insuring the players,” he said. “It's enough that the teams take the risk that somebody is going to be down, but to then say, oh, by the way, you get to pay for it, I don’t think that's fair.”
Unlike the World Cup in soccer, he doesn't intend for the WBC to become a bigger event than MLB's playoffs and World Series.
“I don’t foresee or actually want the tournament to be bigger than our traditional format,” he said. I think the World Series is always going to be the World Series, but I don’t see it as an either/or proposition. This is a different kind of competition. We do it to grow the game and internationalize the game."