U-23 Baseball World Cup: Korea announces roster filled with young KBO stars, 6 players from KT Wiz

SEOUL – World No. 3 Korea announced the 24 players who will represent the nation and compete For the Title of World Champion in the upcoming WBSC U-23 Baseball World Cup 2016, in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico.

Nineteen of Korea’s 24 players are from the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), the top professional sports league in Korea.  KT Wiz is the best-represented KBO club, with six players selected to the U-23 National Team. Eight of the 10 KBO clubs have representatives on the National Team, including the Doosan Bears, Kia Tigers, LG Twins, Lotte Giants, NC Dinos, Nexen Heroes and the Samsung Lions. Five members of the Korean U-23 National Team are from the highest ranks at the university level.

Korea’s first official training will be on 16 October.

The U-23 World Cup, which begins on Friday, 28 October, will be the top international baseball competition of the year and will distribute 690 world ranking points to the winner — the third-highest award, behind the PREMIER12® and the World Baseball Classic.

Korea will begin the U-23 world championship in Group A, which features No. 7 Venezuela and No. 8 Mexico, No. 14 Czech Republic and No. 36 South Africa. The top three finishers from each group will advance to the Super Round group stage.

At the U-21 Baseball World Cup 2014, Korea claimed the bronze.

The inaugural U-23 world championship in Monterrey, Mexico, is an expansion of the U-21 Baseball World Cup, which was launched in 2014. At the U-21 world championship in 2014, the rosters of National Teams included players from clubs affiliated to the Australian Baseball League, Chinese Professional Baseball League, Korean Baseball Organization, Major League Baseball, Mexican Baseball League, Nicaraguan Professional Baseball League and Nippon Professional Baseball.