2009 World Baseball Classic Rosters: Team Japan

The provisional rosters for the 2009 World Baseball Classic were announced on January 19th, 2009.

TEAM JAPAN

PITCHERS

Darvish, Yu

Fujikawa, Kyuji

Iwakuma, Hisashi

Iwata, Minoru

Kishi, Takayuki

Kobayashi, Masahide

Komatsu, Satoshi

Mahara, Takahiro

Matsuzaka, Daisuke

Nagakawa, Katsuhiro

Okajima, Hideki

Sugiuchi, Toshiya

Takeda, Masaru

Tanaka, Masahiro

Terahara, Hayato

Utsumi, Tetsuya

Wada, Tsuyoshi

Wakui, Hideaki

Watanabe, Shunsuke

Yamaguchi, Tetsuya

CATCHERS

Abe, Shinnosuke

Hosokawa, Toru

Ishihara, Yoshiyuki

Johjima, Kenji

Takahashi, Shinji

INFIELDERS

Iwamura, Akinori

Kataoka, Yasuyuki

Kawasaki, Munenori

Kurihara, Kenta

Matsunaka, Nobuhiko

Murata, Shuichi

Nakajima, Hiroyuki

Nishioka, Tsuyoshi

Ogasawara, Michihiro

Tanaka, Kensuke

OUTFIELDERS

Aoki, Norichika

Fukuchi, Kazuki

Fukudome, Kosuke

Inaba, Atsunori

Kamei, Yoshiyuki

Suzuki, Ichiro

Uchikawa, Seiichi

NOTABLE PLAYERS

Daisuke Matsuzaka was the star of the 2006 WBC. Look for a repeat performance this year. Hideki Okajima. Masahide Kobayashi. Kenji Johjima. Akinori Iwamura. Ichiro Suzuki, and new to MLB, Kosuke Fukudome. Another notable player is Yu Darvish. In 2008, with the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters, he posted a line of 200.2 IP, 136H, 44R, 42ER, 11HR, 53BB, 208K, 1.88ERA. Look for him to dominate just like Matsuzaka did in the inaugural World Baseball Classic.