Asia Professional Baseball Championship logo. (Courtesy WBSC Asia Sector)
The Asia Professional Baseball Championship will return this November to the Tokyo Dome with four nations participating.
The Asia Professional Baseball Championship is a U-24 event that will have players from professional league organizations in Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Taiwan.
The teams must carry participants that are born after the cut off date of January 1, 1999. Teams can carry three overage players born after January 1, 1994.
All players must have three years service with their professional organizations playing for minor league affiliates, and players who have appeared in senior international events including the Olympics, World Baseball Classic, and Premier 12 are ineligible. Australia, which does not have a minor league, will use players from the Australian Baseball League.
This will be the first time that the event has been held in six years due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
The Asia Professional Baseball Championship is a World Baseball Softball Confederation event that is sanctioned through the WBSC Asia sector, and will affect countries’ World Baseball Ranking.
The championship pits players from the Nippon Professional Baseball (Japan), Korea Baseball Organization (South Korea), and Chinese Professional Baseball League (Taiwan) against each other following the 2023 season. The event will run from November 16-19 in Japan.
Australia, participating for the first time, will also carry players from the Australia Baseball League and players that have played in other international age group tournament events with the Australian Baseball Federation. A member of the World Baseball Softball Confederation Oceania sector, Australia will make its first appearance in the Asia Professional Baseball Championship.
All of the nations participating in the Asia Professional Baseball Championship are inside the top 10 of the World Baseball Rankings: Japan at No. 1, Korea at No. 5, Chinese Taipei at No. 4, and Australia at No. 9.
The last APBC was held in November 2017. Japan was the host nation, and beat South Korea in the championship game 7-0. The MVP was Shuta Tonosaki of the Seibu Lions (NPB), who also was a gold medalist at the WBSC Premier 12 in 2019.
Each day at the Asia Professional Baseball Championship will be a doubleheader, concluding with a third-place game and championship game on November 19.
The Team Quality Balance run differential formula will be part of the tie-breaking criteria during the Asia Professional Baseball Championship.
There will be no pitch count limit for the APBC.
Japan is in line for a new manager at the helm for their senior national team since Hideki Kuriyama retired after their third World Baseball Classic title.
The winning team will receive 20,000,000 yen and the second place team will receive 5,000,000 at the end of the APBC.
2023 Asia Professional Baseball Championship Schedule
All games will be held at the Tokyo Dome
Wednesday, November 15, 2023
11 p.m. EST – Korea vs. Australia
Thursday, November 16, 2023
6 a.m. EST – Chinese Taipei vs. Japan
11 p.m. – EST – Australia vs. Chinese Taipei
Friday, November 17, 2023
6 a.m. EST – Japan vs. Korea
11 p.m. – EST – Australia vs. Japan
Saturday, November 18, 2023
6 a.m. EST – Korea vs. Chinese Taipei
10 p.m. – EST – Third Place Game
Sunday, November 19, 2023
Finals – 5 a.m. EST
