Japan unveiled its 2026 World Baseball Classic roster on Monday, which included Los Angeles Dodgers stars Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, as expected.
Ohtani was announced in November to play for Japan, though its not yet known whether he will pitch. Yamamoto’s inclusion was expected as well, though whether he pitched was at least somewhat in question after pitching 211 innings between the regular season and postseason combined, culminating in a heavy World Series workload that included starting and winning Game 6, and getting the final eight outs in Game 7 on zero days rest.
Yamamoto on Monday put those questions to rest. From Taro Abe at Chunichi Sports:
The Dodgers were initially reluctant about Yamamoto’s participation after his full workload last season, but his strong desire prevailed. He returned to Japan immediately after the World Series last year and carefully adjusted his training with his personal trainer, Osamu Yada, building his body to be able to compete in the WBC despite a shorter-than-usual offseason. He commented, “I’ve been training diligently this offseason to build the condition to compete in the WBC.”
Japan won the 2023 World Baseball Classic with strong performances from Yamamoto (two runs allowed in 7 1/3 innings, struck out 12 of his 27 batters faced), who was then pitching for the Orix Buffaloes, and Ohtani (.435/.606/.739 in 33 plate appearances; 9 2/3 innings, two runs, 11 strikeouts, got final three outs in title game).
At the winter meetings in December, Dodgers manager talked about the push and pull of players committing to play in the World Baseball Classic, which takes players out of spring training for potentially a few weeks, and can be especially disruptive for starting pitchers building up toward the major league regular season.
“I don’t want to be dismissive of what it means to them representing their country,” Roberts said in December. “I know the organization doesn’t but I do think that the conversations need to be had, will be had, as far as what each individual is taking on and whatever role that they might be taking on and what potential costs there might be. … But you can’t debate the emotion, what a player might feel of this potential opportunity.”
Japan manager Hirozaku Ibata said at a press conference Monday that the MLB players on Japan are expected to join the team for exhibition games against the Chunichi Dragons on February 27-28. Japan begins its World Baseball Classic schedule in Pool C in Tokyo, with its first game on March 6.
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