TAMPA — There goes the captain — and a third of the projected Opening Day roster.
The Yankees just hope to get them all back in the condition they sent them.
Aaron Judge and most of his other teammates who are playing in the World Baseball Classic got their final tuneup in Saturday afternoon before leaving for the camps of their respective countries.
Some could be back in as soon as 10 days, but others, including Judge, may be gone for two-plus weeks — meaning they would return just a week before Opening Day — which comes with a bit of an unsettling feeling for the Yankees as they watch their most precious commodities from afar.
“Honestly, I’m excited for them,” manager Aaron Boone said Saturday after a 5-1 win over the Blue Jays at Steinbrenner Field. “I am looking forward to following it. I think it’s going to be a great tournament. So sure, in some ways, you want to make sure they’re getting what they need and obviously you don’t want injury to happen.
“The reality is, somebody in the tournament is probably … something’s going to happen. It doesn’t mean it wouldn’t happen here necessarily. But I think everyone that is going is very well prepared. There’s risk in everything you do in life. These guys have come in ready to go, checked a lot of boxes this winter to put themselves in position to go do this. At the end of the day, it’s something that’s been very good for the game.
“I’m sure there’ll be some moments you hold your breath a little bit, but that’s OK.”
Besides Judge, the Yankees will be without their starting catcher (Dominican Republic’s Austin Wells) and starting double-play combination (Great Britain’s Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Panama’s José Caballero); their top three relievers (USA’s David Bednar, Dominican Republic’s Camilo Doval and Puerto Rico’s Fernando Cruz); and two of their most important bench bats (USA’s Paul Goldschmidt and Dominican Republic’s Amed Rosario).
And while Judge said he told his teammates staying back at camp that he would be just a phone call or text away if they needed anything, he is also taking on the captaincy for Team USA and wants to be present in that role while he is there.
“I wear many hats,” Judge said. “Captain of the Yankees is one of them. … But I’m going to try to be where my feet are. Be with those boys with Team USA, I’m going to try to soak all that up, enjoy that moment and give everything I can to those guys.”
Judge, who is usually just easing into Grapefruit League games at this point in spring, played in his fifth exhibition Saturday.
The back-to-back AL MVP has been looking forward to this event since being the first player to officially commit to Team USA last April, spearheading a flurry of the game’s best players joining — which wasn’t fully the case in the last WBC in 2023, when USA fell to Japan in the championship.
“Now it’s time for us to go out there and change that script,” Judge said. “You get a chance to throw yourself into full games, heated competition, you’re fighting for your country, it’s pretty cool.”
The Yankees are hoping that playing in such high-stakes games in early March can benefit their large swath of participants, taking that momentum right into the start of the regular season. Most of them also mentioned wanting to pick the brains of their new teammates and find out what makes them great.
“I haven’t known any professional baseball outside the Yankees, so I’m looking forward to getting out there, listening to what guys are doing and maybe bring some stuff back here,” Wells said.
But the event also comes with its share of injury risk, no matter how careful and intentional the Yankees were in building their WBC players up early this spring.
“It’s the same risk for anybody else,” general manager Brian Cashman said. “It’s part of this year’s process. Like any year, there’s so many twists and turns as your season plays out and challenges, from injuries to unexpected poor performance to whatever other issues might pop up. It all gets put in the pot as you’re trying to cook up a championship run. But we wish them all the best.
“If you have good players that those countries want, we’re losing a lot of people — it’s a reflection of we have a lot of good players.”
