“We gotta win it” - Aaron Judge drops bombshell on potential 2026 WBC debut and Team USA’s redemption

Aaron Judge has not played a World Baseball Classic yet. The New York Yankees superstar has not really represented his country in any major athletic events thus far in his baseball career.

He has been almost solely focused on the Yankees, but that may change in 2026 with the next World Baseball Classic. Team USA was defeated by Japan in 2023 in a tense battle.

Judge said, via Deesha Thosar, that he's open to participating the next time it rolls around:

"I think that'd be pretty fun. It'd be cool to represent your country. (Team USA) made it to the finals, but they didn't win it. So we gotta win it. We'll see."

If Judge does join and convinces other American superstars to follow suit, this would be very much like the 2024 Olympics in basketball. Fresh off a stunning upset at the FIBA World Cup, the USA reloaded by convincing legendary stars like Steph Curry, LeBron James and Kevin Durant to give it a go again.

It resulted in a gold medal and returned America to the place it has long been in international basketball. Judge and company could do the same for baseball if they're able to take down reigning champ Japan.

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Which stars were missing from Team USA's 2023 WBC team?

Team USA put up a valiant effort in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, but they fell short to Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Roki Sasaki and Japan. They didn't have some of their top stars, including Aaron Judge.

Team USA lost the last WBC (Getty)

They did have Mike Trout, but some of his American superstar compatriots were not on the team:

• Bryce Harper
• Austin Riley
• Matt Olson
• Alex Bregman
• Max Fried
• Gerrit Cole
• Corbin Burnes
• Zack Wheeler
• Chris Sale

Plus, some young stars have ascended and would now be key parts of the team, such as Bobby Witt Jr., Gunnar Henderson, Tarik Skubal, Paul Skenes and Jackson Merrill.

If Team USA can convince some of these stars to join up in 2026, they could have a dominant lineup and rotation to take in to try and undo their defeat in 2023, when Ohtani struck out Mike Trout to end it.