[Official Announcement] 'Kim Do-young, Choi Min-seok, and Ahn Hyun-min Selected' APBC Roster Finalized... KIA Fields Most Players with Five

*This content was translated by AI.View Original

The list of players who will compete in another international tournament to be held next month, the 2026 Asia Pro Baseball Championship (APBC), has been revealed.

The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) held a team strengthening committee meeting on the 12th to finalize the roster for the 2026 APBC national team, which will take place in Tokyo, Japan, from November 12 to 15.

For this tournament, players aged 24 or under (born on or after January 1, 2002) or within their third year of professional affiliation (joined on or after 2024) are eligible, and up to three wild card players aged 29 or under (born on or after January 1, 1997) may also participate.

The team strengthening committee finalized the roster based on the selection criteria of discovering promising players who will lead the national team in upcoming international tournaments such as the 2027 Premier 12 and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, and providing them with international tournament experience.

Additionally, considering that the national team has participated in several international tournaments this year, pitchers who were called up for the 2026 World Baseball Classic (WBC), such as Kwak Bin (Doosan), were excluded from the final selection for the purposes of managing player condition and preventing injuries.

Pitchers from teams advancing to the Korea Series are also excluded from the final list. Accordingly, pitchers belonging to KT, which has secured a spot in the Korea Series, were not selected, and the final roster is scheduled to be adjusted once the teams advancing to the Korea Series are confirmed or if player injuries occur.

For this purpose, the team strengthening committee has finalized a 33-player roster by adding five players to the initial 28.

The selected players will report for duty on November 1, conduct training and practice games domestically from the 2nd to the 8th, and depart for Japan on November 9. However, the number of participants in the call-up training is expected to vary depending on the postseason schedule. The team will begin with a match against Australia on the 12th, followed by matches against Japan on the 13th and Taiwan on the 14th, before competing in either the final or the third-place playoff on the 15th, depending on the results.

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*This content was translated by AI.View Original