Japanese Players In Baseball United

Baseball United, a winter league with four teams representing Middle Eastern and Asian countries - India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE - kicked off their inaugural season today in Dubai with the Karachi Monarchs beating the Mumbai Cobras 6-4 on the strength of a five run, ninth inning rally.  The league will play an 18 game season with each team playing nine games through early December.

I was a bit surprised when I looked over the 2025 team rosters that there didn't appear to be any Western players who had played in Japan.  The initial rosters back in 2023 had included former gaijin like Willin Rosario, Brandon Laird, Courtney Hawkins and Dovydas Neverauskas but there aren't any on the current rosters.  There are, however, a number of Japanese players on the roster for the Mid East Falcons.  Actually, eleven of the twenty players on the roster are from Japan and I believe that two more will be named on November 19 - there was a TBS* reality show called "Tryout: Plan D" where players competed for the last two roster spots on the team.

* That's Tokyo Broadcast System, not Turner Broadcasting System

The eleven players on the roster can be split up into three groups.  The first, and largest, are the eight former NPB players.  Let's run through them quickly:

2007 BBM 1st Version #101

Shuhei Fukuda was the Hawks first round pick in the 2006 high school draft and played for the team until he left as a free agent after the 2019 season.  He spent the next four years with the Chiba Lotte Marines and played for the independent Kufu Hayate Ventures Shizuoka in 2024.

I didn't see him play for Hayate at the game I went to last year but his name and image was on a banner outside the ballpark:

2017 BBM Eagles #E21

Kodai Hamaya was the Eagles 2013 third round draft pick.  He spent five years in Sendai before being traded to the Baystars before the 2019 season.  He's played all over the place since DeNA released him after the 2020 season including indy ball in Japan (Ibaraki Astro Planets) along with teams in Mexico (Veracruz) and Italy (Nettuno).

2023 BBM Baystars DB18

Shingo Hirata spent his entire ten year NPB career with the Baystars after they drafted him in the second round of the 2013 draft.

2019 Calbee Samurai Japan #SJ-05

The Dragons took Shotaro Kasahara in the fourth round of the 2016 draft.  He was a member of the Samurai Japan team that played against the MLB All Stars in the 2018 off season.  The Baystars plucked him off Chunichi's roster in the first "Active Player Draft" in December of 2022 but they released him after the 2023 season.  He split 2024 between the TSG Hawks of the CPBL and the independent Oisix Niigata Albirex Baseball Club.

2017 Epoch Hawks #21

I probably don't need to say much about 44 year old Munenori Kawasaki.  He was the fourth pick of the 1999 draft by the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks which I believe makes him both the last active player drafted in the 20th century and the last active Daiei Hawk.  After 12 seasons with the Hawks (which included eight All Star appearances, two Best 9 awards, two Golden Glove awards, a stolen base title and two Nippon Series championships), he departed Japan for the Seattle Mariners.  He spend four seasons in MLB between the Mariners, Blue Jays and Cubs before returning to the Hawks in 2017.  After one season with Softbank, he played for the Wei Chuan Dragons of the CPBL and has spent the past six seasons with the Tochigi Golden Braves of the indy Baseball Challenge League.  He played on both the 2006 and 2009 WBC teams for Japan as well as the 2008 Beijing Olympic team (which didn't go as well as the WBC).  He was also a member of the Japan Breeze team that participated in last winter's Caribbean Series.

2006 BBM All Stars #A28

Hiroyuki Nakajima was the fifth round pick of the Seibu Lions in the 2000 draft.  Like Kawasaki, he spent 12 years with the team that drafted him, racking up similar accolades - eight All Star appearances, four Best 9 awards, three Golden Gloves and two Nippon Series championships - before heading for North America.  He spent two seasons in the Oakland Athletics' farm system and never reached the majors before returning to Japan.  He'd spend the remainder of his career with the Orix Buffaloes (2015-18), Yomiuri Giants (2019-23) and Chunichi Dragons (2024).  He was a teammate of Kawasaki's on the 2008 Olympic and 2009 WBC teams.

2019 Baystars Spring Camp #41

Shuto Sakurai was taken by the Baystars in the fifth round of the 2017 draft.  After six years with DeNA, he was selected by the Eagles in the 2023 Active Player draft but Rakuten released him after the 2024 season.  He also played for the Japan Breeze last winter before joining the TSG Hawks of the CPBL for the 2025 season.

2017 BBM 1st Version #357

The second round pick of the Carp in the 2014 draft, Kazuki Yabuta would spend nine seasons in Hiroshima and made one All Star team.  He has spent the last two seasons with the independent Oisix Niigata Albirex Baseball Club.

The second group of players are the current NPB players.  The Yokohama DeNA Baystars have dispatched two "prospects" to play with the Falcons - Manato Tanai and Haru Yoshioka:

2025 BBM Baystars #DB56

2025 Epoch Baystars Premier Edition #35

The final group consists of a single player - Shotaro Usui.  As far as I can tell, he has never played professional baseball in Japan at any level but I've not been able to find out a lot of details about him.  I've seen him referenced with teams in both Austria and Germany as well as a club team in Australia but that's about it.