World No. 1 Japan announced their 24-man roster for the WBSC U-23 Baseball World Cup 2024, which takes place from September 6-15 in Shaoxing, China.
The roster is made of players active in the so-called Industrial Leagues.
PITCHERS (9) Oga Nishimura, Kosei Nagakubo, Kosuke Sasamori, Koki Taniwaki, Ryoju Goto, Aren Sato, Yuto Hayashida, Kento Matsuda , Wataru Matsuda.
CATCHERS (3) Ryo Arima, Taishi Noguchi, Shoki Koyama.
INFIELDERS (7) Takuya Yamada, Yusuke Taura, Ryo Imazato, Takanori Takahashi, Takumi Ishii, Kanta Aiba, Kota Takata.
OUTFIELDERS (5) Shinnosuke Nishimura, Kaito Yoshhikawa, Kazuhiro Ura, Takuma Hayashi, Yuichiro Murakami.
Manager Tomoyasu Kawaguchi (53) is also active in the Industrial Leagues with Mitsubishi Motors Corporation. He led Japan to first place in the U-23 Asian Baseball Championship 2023.
His staff includes bench coach Toru Kato, who was on the 2022 World Champion staff and coaches Kojiro Yamada and Takechi Tamano.
Samurai Japan are the defending U-23 World Champions after beating Korea 3-0 in the final at the WBSC U-23 Baseball World Cup 2022 in Taipei Tianmu Baseball Stadium.
They will compete in Group A and face world No. 11 Australia, No. 12 Puerto Rico, No. 13 Colombia, No. 18 Puerto Rico and No. 24 China.
Group B includes No. 4 Korea, No. 5 Chinese Taipei, No. 6 Venezuela, No. 7 Netherlands, No. 20 Nicaragua and No. 34 South Africa.
Japan's opening game is against Puerto Rico at 19:00 local time.
