Four university students, including Meiji University's Rui Soyama, who is attracting attention as a centerpiece of the fall draft meeting, are expected to be selected as members of the Japan national baseball team's warm-up game to be held this March. I found this out through interviews with the people involved.
The Japanese national baseball team is scheduled to play a warm-up game against the European national team in March as part of their preparation for the international tournament "Premier 12" to be held in November this year, and coach Hirokazu Ibata, who was appointed in October last year, This will be his first match leading the top team.
On the 23rd, a staff meeting for the Japan national team was held in Tokyo, and the 28 members for the warm-up match were finalized, including four university students, including Soyama, an infielder from Meiji University who is attracting attention as a centerpiece of this year's draft meeting. We learned through interviews with people involved that it is expected that he will be selected.
Soyama is a right-handed pitcher and left-handed infielder who has the ability to run, attack, and defend.His total batting average in Tokyo Six University Baseball was .348, and he had eight home runs, making him highly regarded by professional scouts as a ``shortstop who can hit.'' It has been evaluated.
Other
names also included
Kansai University's pitcher Yumeto Kanamaru
, Aichi Institute of Technology's pitcher Yuto Nakamura , and Aoyama Gakuin University's Fumiaki Nishikawa.
Since his appointment, Coach Ibata has stated a policy of not only focusing on strengthening the national team, but also on developing them, and has repeatedly inspected university students.
Amateur players have been selected to represent Japan in the past, but if it is officially decided that four university students will be on the national team, it will be an unprecedented selection.