The Women's Pro Baseball League (WPBL), the latest attempt at a women's professional baseball league (which is somewhat explanatory by the name) in the US, held its draft last week and I got curious about how many of the drafted players had any experience playing in either the Japan Women's Baseball League (JWBL) or for any of the women's teams associated with NPB teams (specifically the Lions, Tigers and Giants). And, of course, which of those players might have baseball cards already.
What I found from looking over the list of drafted players was that there were ten Japanese players drafted along with four players from South Korea. I think, though, that there was only one player who had played in the JWBL - which isn't super surprising since the league's been gone for five years now (and suffered a huge loss of players after 2019 due to issues with how the league was run). Seven of the players, however, have played for one of the NPB team associated women's teams (including one of the Korean players) and six of them have played for an incarnation of their country's women's national team.
I'll go over the Japanese and Korean players on a team by team basis, starting with the Los Angeles team which has the most of them. LA took Ayami Sato as their top pick and the second overall pick. Sato, of course, is a legend in women's baseball and for the longest time was regarded as the best female baseball player in the world. She's the only player that I know for sure played in the JWBL and also the only one I know for sure has baseball cards. I did a post just about a year ago showing all the cards I had at the time of her and, since then, I've added the autographed card from the 2018 Epoch JWBL set that appears above. In the seventh round, LA took Emi Saiki who spent two seasons (2023-24) with the Hanshin Tigers. The Tigers have issued some cards for their women's team as giveaways with bento boxes so it is possible that she might have a baseball card or two as well. Suzu Nasasaki, who spent 2020-22 with the Saitama Seibu Lions as a teammate of Sato's, was LA's 11th pick. They went back to the Lions' roster with their 20th pick, selecting Rio Obitsu who was with the team in 2024-25. Obitsu had played for Samurai Japan in the 2019 Women’s Baseball Asian Cup and was named the MVP of the tournament. LA's 24th pick was pitcher Ayuri Shimano who had spent four seasons (2022-25) with the Yomiuri Giants.
With four players, San Francisco took the second most Asian players in the draft. As far as I've been able to tell, however, none of them played for any of the NPB team associated women's teams. San Francisco took Ayaka Yamamoto with their sixth pick, Jua Park with their ninth pick, Hinani Beppu with their 15th pick and Hanna Miura with their 19th pick. Park played for the South Korean National Team in the 2023/24 Women's World Cup though (although they only participated in the 2023 portion of the tournament).
New York drafted three Asian players. Their third pick, Rakyung Kim, was a member of the Korean National Team for the 2018 Women's World Cup and played for the Lions last season - she was the first Korean player on the Lions. Their seventh pick, Natsuki Yonetani*, was a teammate of Obitsu's on the 2019 Women's Baseball Asian Cup Samurai Japan team and led the team in batting. Their final Asian player was their 29th pick, a Korean infielder named Minseo Park.
* The league website has her name as "Yonetani Natsuki" but Samurai Japan's webpage for the 2019 tournament implies that her family name is Yonetani.
Finally, Boston took two Asian players in the draft. Their first round pick was a Korean catcher named Hyeonah Kim who was also a member of the 2023/24 Korean Women's World Cup team. Their ninth round pick was Suzuka Yamamoto who played on the Tigers in 2021-22 and may have had baseball cards.
I may have missed where some of these women have played. I relied heavily on the Japanese Wikipedia pages for the Tigers, Lions and Giants women's teams as well as their page 2023/24 Women's Baseball World Cup. I also used the Samurai Japan website as well as the WPBL's site.
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