Adam Wainwright defends Mark DeRosa over WBC gaffe: ‘I believe he misspoke’

Adam Wainwright thinks the Mark DeRosa pile-on has gone too far.

The former St. Louis Cardinals pitcher took to social media Thursday to defend Team USA’s manager, who has been under fire since telling MLB Network’s Hot Stove on Tuesday morning that the team’s “ticket’s punched to the quarterfinals” — a statement that wasn’t true when he said it — and looked a lot worse after the Americans lost to Italy 8-6 that night to put their tournament lives in jeopardy. DeRosa also sat Bryce Harper, Alex Bregman, Cal Raleigh, Byron Buxton, and Brice Turang, with the apparent belief that the game was a low-stakes opportunity to get bench players some at-bats.

After the loss, DeRosa said he “misspoke” and “completely misread the calculations,” though the damage was already done. The MLB Network interview briefly disappeared from the network’s website before reappearing on Wednesday morning.

Wainwright, who went 2-0 as a player under DeRosa at the 2023 WBC and saw him manage this format up close, wasn’t buying it. In a lengthy X post, he worked through each piece of the criticism, starting with the most basic question: did DeRosa actually not know? Wainwright finds that hard to believe. DeRosa had two former big-league managers on his staff in Freddi Gonzalez and David Ross, bench coach Dino Ebel — whom Wainwright called “widely respected as one of the best baseball men and coaches on the planet” — a full roster of MLB players who all know the standings, and reporters asking questions all day. The idea that nobody in that entire operation had walked DeRosa through the elimination scenarios before he went on Hot Stove strains credulity, which is why Wainwright takes “misspoke” at face value.

The lineup criticism got the same treatment. Harper, Bregman, Raleigh, Buxton, and Turang all sat, but the players DeRosa put in their place actually hit. Pete Crow-Armstrong went deep twice, while Gunnar Henderson homered, Paul Goldschmidt singled, and Ernie Clement had a hit. The team gave up eight runs to an Italian squad that went out the following night and scored nine more against Mexico. Wainwright’s point is that the problem wasn’t the lineup — it was the pitching — and that the broader criticism of DeRosa’s qualifications ignores what makes him uniquely suited for this particular job. He’s already managed this format once, he understands how MLB teams restrict player usage during the tournament, and from his own time playing under him, Wainwright said nobody is better at the thing that matters most in a compressed tournament setting, which is getting a group of players from 30 different organizations to function as a team in a matter of days.

Mark Derosa is catching a LOT of heat right now. Lots of people saying he shouldn’t manage the USA team. Lots of people saying you need a big league manager running the show. As a member of the 2023 WBC team that won a silver medal, and went 2-0 (sniff) for DeRo, let me weigh…

— Adam Wainwright (@UncleCharlie50) March 12, 2026

Mark Derosa is catching a LOT of heat right now. Lots of people saying he shouldn’t manage the USA team. Lots of people saying you need a big league manager running the show. As a member of the 2023 WBC team that won a silver medal, and went 2-0 (sniff) for DeRo, let me weigh in on this matter. I saw the interview where he said “tickets were punched”…. I saw it. Is it possible that he didn’t know the exact situation? Maybe. But let’s think clearly on all things people are concerned about really quick:

1. Does he need to have big league experience as a manager to manage the team? The short answer to this is NO. He managed in 23 and knew the format. He knew how the roster needed to be constructed. He knew how teams would be calling and basically telling him how he could use their guys. All teams do it. All teams have parameters on their players. I’d argue he knew this particular system better than the normal manager.
Side note…he’s surrounded by big league managers in Freddi Gonzalez and David Ross. Also, Dino Ebel is widely respected as one of the best baseball men and coaches on the planet.
Side note 2…. As a teammate of his and player of his, I can honestly say he is one of the best ever at bringing people together and in this format the team has to become a team quickly. Nobody better for that.

2. Did he really not know the exact situation? As stated before, he’s surrounded by staff and USA people. Surrounded by media asking questions all day long. Are we really to think that nobody had given him the tea? Please. I believe he misspoke. He would have known the night before that interview all the scenarios.

3. How could he sit Bregs, Bux, Turang, and Harp? Replaced by PCA (2 home runs and top 10 MVP), Gunnar Henderson (homerun and top 2 MVP in 2024), Ernie Clement (single and just set records in the postseason), Paul Goldschmidt (single and 2022 MVP). They hit. The fact is they gave up 8 runs. The team they gave up 8 runs to is hotter than fire and scored another 9 last night.

I wanted them to win that game as much as you did, but sometimes you lose. Let’s just for a second say that DeRo didn’t know the situation. Then the entire staff, hoard of reporters, all the roster… they didn’t know either? It’s hard to get behind that theory. Whoever is still locked in on him being incompetent though, you keeping that same energy if the USA wins and then all the sudden he’s a silver and gold medal-winning manager?

Wainwright makes a reasonable case, sure, but DeRosa isn’t blameless here. Going on national TV and telling Matt Vasgersian and Harold Reynolds the ticket was punched when it wasn’t — and then appearing to make lineup decisions on that basis — is a legitimate problem, not a media overreaction. The best case for him is Wainwright’s: that he misspoke, that the staff knew the situation, that the replacements hit, and that Italy was just the better team that night. The worst-case scenario is that the manager of the most talented Team USA ever assembled didn’t understand his team’s elimination scenario heading into the most consequential game of pool play.

Those two versions of Tuesday night aren’t mutually exclusive, and the only thing that resolves the debate one way or the other is what happens in Houston on Friday night against Canada.