It's Venezuela

Venezuela are world champs. In a bullpen battle Venezuela was able to hold off the US and claim their first WBC.

Scroll for a recap of how Venezuela did it, a look ahead at the Yankee rotation, and Griffey on the Reds.

— Team TSN

By winning the World Baseball Classic, Venezuela ended all doubt about the sport’s pecking order. For years, the top tier for international baseball has been Japan, the United States, and the Dominican Republic. Venezuela would be placed just outside that top trio, alongside Puerto Rico and Cuba. But this title made the point clearly: Venezuela is every bit in the first tier. 

La asfixia: Venezuela’s lineup never offered an easy inning. There was star power everywhere, but the more impressive part was the depth. Maikel Garcia, Luis Arráez, Ronald Acuña Jr., Eugenio Suárez, Salvador Perez, Jackson Chourio, and a bench that included the Contreras brothers gave Venezuela a batting order that could pressure opponents one through nine, gradually cutting off the oxygen of opposing pitchers.

El bullpen: In three tournament games the Venezuela bullpen threw 18.2 innings and allowed only two earned runs, with Bryce Harper’s homer (predicted by Trev) accounting for the damage in the final. In the single-elimination format where managers are forced to chase outs with urgency, that kind of relief work is devastating. Power arms kept coming, the velocity kept climbing, and rallies could never get going. That is how championships get locked down in modern baseball, and Venezuela’s bullpen looked built exactly for that job. 

El coach: Omar López delivered as Venezuela’s manager. The lineup construction worked. The pinch-running decisions worked. The defensive substitutions worked. The bullpen moves worked. Every lever that could be pulled seemed to be pulled at the right moment. In a tournament with some crazy managerial mistakes, López gave his squad the opposite: clean choices, sharp timing, and a game that always felt under control.

A classic Classic: Beyond the trophy, this tournament felt a step forward for the World Baseball Classic itself. The event now has enough history, enough emotion, and enough weight that records and moments from it already feel meaningful in their own right. A title like this instantly reshapes how a baseball nation is remembered, and a run like Venezuela’s becomes part of the country’s sporting identity. That is what the Classic has become: not a sideshow to the major league season, but one of the sport’s most important stages.

With Opening Day just a week off, let’s run through the seven pitchers who will eventually settle into five Yankee starters, once everyone is back from rehab assignments. We’re skipping Clarke Schmidt for now because he isn’t slated for a return until after the All-Star break, and there might not be a rotation spot open for him if the team is lucky with injuries.

Gerrit Cole: Trust the rehab, trust the process, trust the pitcher. More than anything, the hope is that Cole, Max Fried, and Carlos Rodón actually overlap when it matters. It would be brutal to look back and realize the top of the rotation never really existed at full strength all at once.

Carlos Rodón: This one feels unsettled. The quotes about how his arm feels are really strange. There is no full panic, but there is also no clean, confident takeaway until he gets his velocity back to where it used to be.

Max Fried: Fried looks like a guy with some dog in him, some edge, and a real understanding of how to use his strengths. The ability to field his position, create weak contact, and now pair that with stronger infield defense all fits. The key is not letting the left side of the infield sabotage that plan again.

Cam Schlittler: The stuff and mound presence are absolutely enticing, and there’s clear belief in the attitude he brings to the mound. But baseball is not kind to young power arms after big workload jumps. The upside is easy to see. The durability and shape of the full season are the questions.

Luis Gil: This is the shakiest outlook of the group. The spring has been alarming, the fastball has not looked right, and the whole profile still carries the old question of whether it was ever truly sustainable. There’s still hope that this turns around, but right now it reads more like a shrug and a concern than a confident projection.

Will Warren: The spring has been excellent, the pitch mix feels more complete and repeatable than Luis Gil’s, and the adjustment on the rubber seems to have unlocked something. More than anything, the confidence looks different. If that turns into a real “dog on the mound” season, Warren could become one of the biggest developments on the staff.

Ryan Weathers: The spring results have been rough, but this could easily be tinkering rather than the stuff not being there. Because the Yankees have other options, Weathers does not have to carry much. That might be exactly what lets him help.