Taiwan’s national baseball team finalized a 36-player training roster that it would draw on to compete in the World Baseball Classic (WBC) qualifying round in Taipei later this month and began training for the event on Monday.
Of the 36 players, there are 19 pitchers, four catchers, eight infielders, including Taiwan’s star of the 2023 WBC Yu Chang, and five outfielders, while nine of the players compete abroad.
However, only two of the players — catcher Lin Chia-cheng and outfielder Chen Chieh-hsien, were on the team who won the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) Premier12 championship in November last year.
Photo: CNA
The roster has to be whittled down to 28 for the Feb. 21 to 25 qualifying round at the Taipei Dome, but regardless of who plays, Taiwan would be heavily favored to advance to next year’s WBC finals.
To advance, Taiwan would have to take one of the top two places in a qualifying group that also includes Nicaragua, Spain and South Africa.
Neither Spain nor South Africa made it to the 2023 WBC finals, and a win by either nation over Taiwan, on a high after their Premier12 win and currently ranked world No. 3 by the WBSC, would be considered a massive upset.
The top 16 of the 20 teams in the 2023 WBC finals automatically qualified for next year’s edition of the top global baseball tournament that usually draws many of the game’s top stars.
Taiwan have to qualify because they finished last in their 2023 WBC group by virtue of tiebreakers after all five teams had a 2-2 record.
Of the nine players on the training roster who play overseas, eight are pitchers, including Zhuang Chen Zhong-ao, Sun Yi-lei, Lin Sheng-en and Sha Tzu-chen, while Cheng Tsung-che is an infielder.
Lin Sheng-en, 19, who plays in the Cincinnati Reds organization, was the only overseas player who reported for Monday’s training session, while the others are expected to report in between Monday and Friday next week, team manager Tseng Hao-jiu said.
Lin Chia-cheng, 27, is currently a free agent and in the US trying to negotiate a new contract and might not be available for the WBC qualifiers, CPBL president Tsai Chi-chang said.
Yu Chang was not able to play in the Premier12 tournament due to injury, but he said he is in good physical condition and would be ready for the games later this month.
Taiwan are to train for the WBC qualifiers at the Taipei Dome until Thursday next week and then at the Tianmu Baseball Stadium from Friday next week to Feb. 17.
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