Fighters in Arizona, 2017 Edition

As I mentioned a few weeks back, your 2017 Nippon Series Champion Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters are returning to Peoria, Arizona for spring training this February.  More details have come out in the last week or so, including the schedule and the roster of who's attending.

The Fighters will have an abbreviated trip due to the World Baseball Classic starting up in early March.  Like last year they will be at the Padres training facility at the Peoria Sports Complex.  They will hold practices on February 1-4, 6-7 and the 10th, play an exhibition game against the KBO's KT Wiz on the eighth and hold an inter-squad game on the ninth.  The fifth will be an off day.

Shohei Ohtani is one of the Fighters coming to Arizona but it's rumored that he won't actually play in either of the games.  A couple of the other big names for the Fighters (Sho Nakata, Naoki Miyanishi, and Hirotoshi Masui) decided not to come to Arizona and will be with the ni-gun team in Okinawa instead.  Here's the full roster (got some help with the names from here):



There are a couple KBO teams training in the US.  Obviously the KT Wiz are in Arizona as it would be difficult for them to play the Fighters if they were not.  They will be training in Tucson from February 1 to 17 and then go to Los Angeles until March 8th.  The NC Dinos will also be in Tucson from February 1 to 19 and in Los Angeles until March 11.  The Nexen Heroes will be in the Phoenix area from January 30 to March 7 at two separate locations but I'm not entirely sure where those locations are.  The LG Twins will be at Surprise Stadium, home of the Rangers and Royals, from February 1 to 11 and the Lotte Giants will be using the Mariners facilities at the Peoria Sports Complex from January 30 to February 22.  Finally the SK Wyverns (managed by Trey Hillman) will be in Vero Beach, Florida from February 1 to 24.  (Source MyKBO.net)