Davey Johnson, new Team USA manager, is playing to win the WBC

David Wright, not Alex Rodriguez, will be at third base for Team USA during the World Baseball Classic. AP Tom Verducci's Mailbag Submit a comment or question for Tom. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND

LAS VEGAS -- Team USA has heard the wakeup call and actually will try to win the World Baseball Classic next March, not just show up and put on a glorified All-Star exhibition to sell some cool jerseys, an approach that left it ill-prepared for any success in 2006. The new attitude begins with the right man to manage the team, former major league and Olympic team manager Davey Johnson. Think Johnson, for instance, is broken up about Alex Rodriguez switching teams to play for the Dominican Republic? Think again.

"I want a guy who wants to play for us," Johnson said at this week's winter meetings. "If someone is even hinting that they want to go to another team, he's not on my list."

Johnson, who managed four teams during a 14-year career in the majors and who led Team USA to a bronze medal at the Beijing Games this summer, didn't waste any time replacing Rodriguez. He has already called Mets third baseman David Wright. Because Johnson intends to win the gold medal, and not just run players in and out of games as in an exhibition, he asked Wright, "Are you ready to play nine innings?" Replied Wright, "I'll be ready to go 18 if you want."

The U.S. failed to get past the second round of the inaugural WBC under manager Buck Martinez. Johnson was a coach for that team, and his gold medal vision for '09 is exactly what's needed to inject even more excitement into the event. He is so passionate about building a winning team that he intends to carry only 24 or 25 players -- below the allowable limit of 28 -- because he doesn't need superstar major leaguers taking up unneeded space. The more players he carries, for instance, the more he would feel obligated to get them into games to make sure they get their reps to prepare for the regular season, and the more he forces players into games for those reasons, the less it becomes about winning.

Moreover, Johnson said he would like to have his team picked "before Christmas" -- the better, he said, to get the players to prepare mentally for the 16-team Classic, rather than having guys wondering if they should be in game shape by early March. Johnson intends to carry two catchers (one can always be added off a 45-man roster in the event of an injury), "three or four" corner infielders, three middle infielders and four outfielders. If he carries the expected 13 pitchers, that would leave him with 25 or 26 players. Here is a look at the likely USA roster, according to team sources:

Catchers

Joe Mauer and Brian McCann. They would seem to be fairly obvious, and an upgrade on the WBC I catching trio of Jason Varitek, Michael Barrett and Brian Schneider. Johnson will alternate the use of his catchers; one game on, one game off.

Corner infielders

Wright, Evan Longoria, Chipper Jones and Lance Berkman. Jones is expected to be the primary DH. Longoria, who played for Johnson in the baseball World Cup, gets an edge over Ryan Zimmerman. Derek Lee, Mark Teixeira and Ryan Howard could be in contention for a spot, but Howard is not the kind of hitter that fits the USA's desire to win a March tournament. With his long swing, Howard is seen as a risky pick to be on top of his game that early in the year. In fact, he's a notorious slow starter who is a career .230 hitter in April.

Middle infielders

Derek Jeter, Dustin Pedroia and Michael Young. Jeter (introduced on Wednesday as the team's first player) and Pedroia are locks. Johnson wants his third middle infielder to be able to play both positions. Young, who played in WBC I, fits the bill.

Outfielders

Curtis Granderson, B.J. Upton, Grady Sizemore, Josh Hamilton. Those four are at the top of the most wanted list, with Hamilton a possible cleanup hitter. Other possibilities if one of those players is unavailable include Matt Holliday (though having been traded from Colorado to Oakland, he may need the spring training time with his new team) and Ryan Braun.

Pitchers

Brandon Webb, Cliff Lee, Brad Lidge, Jonathan Papelbon and Joe Nathan appear to be the safe picks. Putting together a pitching staff is far more problematic than gathering position players. For instance, both Tim Lincecum and Roy Halladay have indicated they prefer not to pitch in the WBC, though Johnson wants both of them and will continue to have dialogue with them. CC Sabathia backed out of WBC I, and he has no shot this time after the Yankees just invested $161 million in his left arm that was heavily taxed last year. Likewise, the Phillies may not want Cole Hamels to crank himself up to game speed in March after throwing a seven-month season last year that took him far beyond his career-high in innings. Jake Peavy is not expected to return after hurting his arm in WBC I, the result of overthrowing so early in the spring.

Johnson wants a heavily left-handed pitching staff, in part because Canada and Japan are loaded with lefty hitting. That could mean roster spots for pitchers such as Brian Fuentes, Jon Lester, John Danks and B.J. Ryan. The USA took only three lefties in the first WBC: Fuentes, Al Leiter and Dontrelle Willis. Johnson is leaning toward carrying only four or five starting pitchers.

Team USA is scheduled to meet in Clearwater, Fla., on March 2, with a workout the next day. It will play three exhibition games before heading to Toronto to open Round 1 play at the Rogers Centre on March 7 in a four-team pool with Canada, Italy and Venezuela.

"Playing three ball games first solves a lot of problems," Johnson said. "It will put us way ahead of what happened last time."

The players won't have to wait until they get to Clearwater to understand Johnson's mission. He is telling them now to prepare to play winning baseball, not just to put on a show. That means being in shape to play nine innings at high intensity by the first week of March.

"I'm not messing around with agents or other people," Johnson said. "I'm going right to the players. It will not be run like an All-Star Game where you try to get everybody in the game. I'm not comfortable running it like the All-Star Game. The biggest problem will be making sure I get everyone enough playing time."

• No one, including the players, was quite sure what to expect from the WBC in 2006. But after a wildly successful debut the WBC is a big attraction for players this time around. Likewise, WBC officials have learned from the inaugural event and made improvements to the format. Among the key changes are: