The defending World Champions, No. 1 Japan, announced their roster for the 2024 World Baseball Softball Confederation U-23 Baseball World Cup. The rosters will have 24 players from the Japanese industrial leagues. Here is the roster that manager Tomoyasu Kawaguchi selected:
Pitchers (9): Oga Nishimura, Kosei Nagakubo, Kosuke Sasamori, Kiki Taniwaki, Ryoju Goto, Aren Sato, Yuto Hayashida, Kento Matsuda, Wataru Matsuda.
Catchers (3): Ryo Arima, Tanisha Noguchi, Soki Koyama.
Infielders (7): Takuya Yamada, Yusuke Taura, Ryo Imazato, Takanori Takahashi, Takumi Ishii, Kanta Aiba, Korea Takata.
Outfielders (5): Shinnosuke Nishimura, Kaito Yoshhikawa, Kazuhiro Ura, Takuma Hayashi, Yuichiro Murakami.
While selected to manage the U-23 team, manager Kawaguchi is also an active manager in the Industrial Leagues, leading the Mitsubishi Motors Corporation. He also led Japan to first place last year in the U-23 Asian Baseball Championship.
Other coaches who will join his staff include bench coach Toru Kato, who was on the 2022 World Champion staff, and Kojiro Yamada and Takechi Tamano.
Japan is set to compete in Group A, and their opponents include No. 11 Australia, No. 12 Puerto Rico, No. 13 Colombia, and No. 24 China.
Group B holds No. 4 Korea, No. 5 Chinese Taipei, No. 6 Venezuela, No. 7 Netherlands, No. 20 Nicaragua and No. 34 South Africa.
The event will take place from September 6 to 15 in Shaoxing, China. Japan’s opening game will be against Puerto Rico.
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WBN WBSC: https://worldbaseball.com/?s=WBSC
