Aaron Judge is Team USA’s new Captain America. Plus, Arenado on why he nixed Astros trade

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The Windup Newsletter ⚾ | This is The Athletic’s MLB newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Windup directly in your inbox.

The World Baseball Classic isn’t ‘til next March, but Team USA has a captain: Aaron Judge.

Plus: Nolan Arenado speaks on his reasons for refusing the Astros, Sam Blum tells the heartbreaking story of a White Sox legend and Ken tells us about Kyren Paris’ impressive set of goals. I’m Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal. Welcome to The Windup!

Big Deals: Judge named WBC captain 

Almost immediately after sending yesterday’s Windup, news broke that Aaron Judge would be Team USA’s captain for the 2026 World Baseball Classic.

As far as big names in the sport go, it’s hard to think any American is more immediately recognizable or influential. In 2023, that person was Mike Trout, but given the three-time MVP’s combined 126 games in the two-plus seasons since, the Yankees star is the logical first name to announce for maximum attention.

In fact, it makes so much sense, my first question was: “Oh yeah … why didn’t he play in the last one?” Coming off the 2022 season in which he broke the AL single-season home run record with 62, what happened in 2023?

Brendan Kuty has your answer here in his story about the announcement: Judge felt a responsibility to be as present as possible during spring training that year, since he had just signed his $360 million mega-extension with the Yankees and had just been named the first Yankees captain since Derek Jeter.

For what it’s worth, we still might get Trout on next year’s WBC roster; the rest of the players haven’t been announced yet — though Chad Jennings did his best to project what the roster could look like.

It’s still nearly a year away, so this isn’t information you need just yet, but in case it’s information you want — I don’t know your life, maybe you’re planning on booking flights — the U.S. will be playing in Pool B with Brazil, Great Britain, Italy and Mexico from March 6-11 next year. The championship game will happen on March 17 in Miami.

Ken’s Notebook: For Angels’ Paris, a roadmap to success

From my most recent notes column:

When Angels officials visited Kyren Paris in high school, they couldn’t help but notice the writing on the wall.

Paris, then 17, had turned his garage into a workout area. On the inside of the door he posted a sheet of paper with different goals for his senior year at Freedom H.S. in Oakley, Calif.: Bat .400. Have good at-bats. Be a good teammate. Work hard every day. To represent another dream, he displayed a photo of a Gold Glove.

There also was this: Get a 4.0.

The Angels’ people were duly impressed — Paris was thinking about succeeding academically as well as in baseball. Sure enough, he maintained a 4.0 GPA throughout high school. He also fared well in his chosen sport, going to the Angels in the second round of the 2019 draft.

“My dad (Lejeune) would always tell me about putting things up so you see them more often and they’re more likely to happen, just kind of manifest themselves,” Paris said. “I wrote them down so every day when I would go into the garage to do my tee work, it was the first thing I saw.”

Paris maintains the practice to this day, except now he keeps his goals on his phone wallpaper. A swing change he made with the help of Aaron Judge’s private hitting coach helped revive his career. And he has helped fuel the Angels’ 9-6 start, becoming the first player since Larry Walker to hit five or more runs and steal four or more bases in the first 10 games of a season.

The Angels are rotating Paris between second base and center field, and finding him playing time might be more difficult once the team is healthier. Paris, though, is not about to abandon his goal of winning a Gold Glove.

“It’s definitely coming,” he said, laughing. “Don’t know where, but it’s coming.”

More notes here.

In His Words: Arenado speaks on nixed Astros trade

It’s a little rare for a player to be this forthcoming about the reasons he invoked a no-trade clause.

But in this case, it kind of makes sense. As it turns out, it wasn’t so much an “absolutely not” as it was a “I need more time, based on what I’m seeing.” And what Nolan Arenado was seeing this offseason was an Astros team team that was shedding star players at an alarming rate.

The Astros were initially on Arenado’s list of teams he would have interest in playing for as the Cardinals began the process of trying to trade him last offseason. But as the deal got close, the Astros traded Kyle Tucker to the Cubs, and both Ryan Pressly and Framber Valdez were rumored to be available (Valdez stayed, Pressly followed Tucker in a separate trade with the Cubs).

Furthermore, Arenado plays third base, so he knew that signing with Houston would seal the departure of Alex Bregman — something that ultimately happened anyway, when Bregman signed with Boston.

Shortly after the Tucker trade, the deal between the Cardinals and Astros was close — as in “just awaiting approval from the player” close.

Arenado didn’t give a permanent “no” answer, but he did tell the Cardinals that he needed more time to consider, given the developments in Houston. The Astros didn’t have time to wait; they pivoted to first baseman Christian Walker, and the deal was dead.

That squares exactly with what Katie Woo reported back in February through multiple sources. That would have been sufficient to know what happened, but hearing it in Arenado’s own words was interesting to me, anyway.

Read This: Blum on Bobby Jenks

I obviously remember the name Bobby Jenks. He was the guy who threw the last pitch of the 2005 World Series that snapped an 87-year title drought for the White Sox. He was only three-plus months into his big-league career, having debuted on July 6. By season’s end, he was the team’s closer, and he pitched in all four games of that October sweep of the Astros (who were in the National League in those days).

For the following five seasons, he was one of the best closers in the sport, saving 167 more games over the next five years for a total of 173. That’s 75th-most in league history. Before the 2011 season, he signed with the Red Sox, but never saved another game.

What I’m not sure I ever heard about was how his career ended after such a brief-but-brilliant tenure. That’s on me — it’s been right there on the internet since 2019. A botched spinal surgery led to an addiction to painkillers. Even without the pills, though, the surgery is what did it. The hospital ultimately paid Jenks $5.1 million in damages.

Today, Sam Blum has an update on Jenks, and here is your fair warning: It’s pretty heartbreaking. Jenks is battling stomach cancer. The diagnosis is terminal. He’s living in Portugal with his wife, and he’s in pretty dire financial straits due to medical bills. Initially, they had planned to rent out their L.A.-area home, but it was destroyed in the Palisades fires earlier this year.

Here’s hoping for a miraculous recovery.

Handshakes and High Fives

Kris Bryant was one of the most ascendant stars of the mid-2010s. He’s spent a lot of time on the IL lately, including five back-related stints. Yesterday, we got a sobering explanation why: He has a degenerative lower-back condition.

Our weekly Power Rankings ask this question: Good start or bad start aside, what might be a problem for each team?

Tarik Skubal’s changeup changed (get it?) his career trajectory. Cody Stavenhagen says the pitch is now looking better than ever.

In 1970, the Apollo 13 was the height of engineering prowess, but the oxygen tank failed and the astronauts had no choice but to piece it together and survive. This is a very dramatic way of introducing a story about the Phillies outfield.

It looks like Jasson Domínguez might be figuring things out in left field. That would be great news for the Yankees.

Garrett Crochet carried a no-hitter into the eighth inning Sunday. What was his summary? To suggest that he’s not quite in midseason form just yet. Meanwhile … what’s going on with the Red Sox?

From the college ranks: We have a new No. 1 in the top 25, and Mitch Light checks in to see how the former Pac-12 teams are faring in their new leagues in his week in review.

While we’re at it, Keith Law has his top 50 prospects from this year’s draft class.

No.

Most-clicked in our last newsletter: Sam Blum’s report that the Angels appear to be funding Eric Kay’s legal costs.

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(Photo: Matt Marton / Imagn Images)

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