MLB announced the full rosters for its upcoming Japan All-Star Series 2014, and while the roster doesn’t have too many big-name pitchers, there’s plenty of offense in the lineup, including Chicago White Sox slugger Jose Abreu and Seattle Mariners star Robinson Cano.
MLB has announced the full roster for the upcoming five-game Japan All-Star Series:
The full roster for Japan All-Star Series 2014, just announced by MLB & @MLB_PLAYERS: pic.twitter.com/4J28M8wngf
— MLB Communications (@MLB_PR) November 7, 2014
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The Japan All-Star Series will be a five-game series featuring the MLB All-Stars above, managed by
skipper John Farrell, against “Samurai Japan,” the much-cooler name for Japan’s national team, in the Kyocera Dome in Osaka, Tokyo Dome in Tokyo and Sapporo Dome in Sapporo, November 14 through November 20. There will also be two exhibition games prior to the series.
It’s a completely-meaningless series to most baseball fans in North America, but this is MLB’s chance to continue to foster a relationship with the Japanese baseball leagues, and increase the popularity of MLB in Japan as well. That said, if you’re an insomniac baseball junkie (all of the games start at 4 a.m. on MLB Network, though the network will re-air the games at a more reasonable hour the next night, and they’ll be on-demand through MLB.TV after completion), hey, November baseball, and this roster doesn’t suck at all.
Looking at the pitchers, it’s understandably thin, as most teams don’t want their pitchers doing any extracurricular throwing in the offseason, but there’s at least a couple interesting names here; Matt Shoemaker had a terrific rookie season for the Los Angeles Angels, but unfortunately a late-season injury hampered his ability to help the Angels in the playoffs, so this is likely a rehab assignment of sorts for him. His teammate, Hector Santiago, wasn’t a rookie but he still had injury issues end his season early, so it’s likely two Halos pitchers will start in the series.
Both Kansas City Royals catchers (Salvador Perez and Erik Kratz) will make the trip, and it has plenty of offense, with Jose Abreu, Ronbinson Cano, the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ Yasiel Puig, the Cleveland Indians‘ Carlos Santana, and two members of the Tampa Bay Rays‘ offense — third baseman Evan Longoria and do-it-all Ben Zobrist.
If nothing else, it will be live baseball in November. Hopefully nobody gets hurt.
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