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Thursday, November 7, 2024

2024 Premier 12 Samurai Japan Roster

After a one year COVID-related delay, the 2024 Premier 12 is going to kick off this weekend.  The twelve teams are split into two six team Groups with Group A (Mexico, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Panama, the Netherlands and the US) playing in Mexico starting on Saturday and Group B (Japan, Korea, Cuba, "Chinese Taipei" aka Taiwan, Australia and the Dominican Republic) playing mostly in Taiwan (Japan's first game will be in Nagoya) starting next Wednesday.  The top two teams in each group will play in the Super Round at Tokyo Dome starting on November 21st - this round will determine the seeding for the Gold Medal and Bronze Medal games on November 24th.

At first glance, the Samurai Japan roster isn't as impressive as it's been for previous tournaments.  MLB does not allow any player on a 40 man roster to play so a bunch of the stars from the WBC team of last year aren't available.  Additionally stars like Roki Sasaki and Munetaka Murakami aren't playing.  A couple other big names - Kazuma Okamoto, Hiromi Itoh and Chusei Mannami - had to back out due to injury.  Still, there's a number of good players and Japan is still the favorite to win the tournament again.

There are a handful of players from the WBC team - Taisei, Shosei Togoh, Hiroto Takahashi, Shugo Maki and Sosuke Genda.  There are also a bunch of players from the team that won the Asian Professional Baseball Championship a year ago.  I tried to pick cards showing players in Samurai Japan uniforms as much as I could, including a few of the Panini cards for the collegiate team.

2020 Eagles Team Set 1st Version #08

2019 Calbee Samurai Japan #SJ-29 Sosuke Genda

2023 Topps Now Samurai Japan #9

2020 Epoch NPB #250

2021 BBM 2nd Version #461

2023 BBM Fighters #F32

2023 Calbee #FW-06 Kotaro Kiyomiya

2023 Topps Now Samurai Japan #16

2023 Topps Now Samurai Japan #6

2024 Topps Now Samurai Japan Global Games #2

2024 Hawks Season Vol. 1 #24SBH125

2023 BBM 1st Version #208

2020 Panini USA Baseball Star & Stripes #JCS-SM

2023 Topps Now Samurai Japan #3

2023 Epoch One #607

2022 Topps Now Samurai Japan #004

2023 BBM Tigers #T16

2023 Topps Now Samurai Japan Team Set #SJ-15 Shogo Sakakura

2021 Epoch Baystars Rookies & Stars #32

2019 Panini USA Baseball Stars & Stripes "Rack Pack" Japanese Collegiate Team #12

2023 Topps Now Samurai Japan Team Set #SJ-12 Tatsuya Shimizu

2023 Topps Now Samurai Japan #7

2023 BBM Marines #M25

2023 BBM Eagles #E25

2023 Topps Global Stars #31

2019 Panini USA Baseball Stars & Stripes "Rack Pack" Japanese Collegiate Team #22

2022 Topps Now Samurai Japan Team Set #SJ-7

2023 Topps Now Samurai Japan Team Set #SJ-6 Rikuto Yokoyama 

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