Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters starter/designated hitter Shohei Otani (22 years of age), and most of his other teammates will be at Peoria, Arizona next month for their spring camp (second time around). The team announced today that they will depart sometime this late January, and their reported schedule will be only up to the 1st to 10th of February in Arizona before heading to Nago, Okinawa for their annual practice matches in preparation for the regular season, and the upcoming World Baseball Classic for some of the players in their group this March. So if any of you guys are out there looking for some Shohei Otani autographs/memorabilia, you know where to go.

Team 1 player list participating in Peoria, Arizona (42 in total):

Pitchers (22 overall):

Shohei Otani, Yuki Saito, Kohei Arihara, Takayuki Kato, Edwin Escobar (recent acquisition), Luis Mendoza, Kenta Uehara, Hiroshi Urano, Yodai Enoshita, Hirotoshi Takanashi, Chris Martin, Naoyuki Uwasawa, Kazutomo Iguchi, Toyuki Tanaka, Yuki Yoshida, Naoya Ishikawa, Yohei Kagiya, Shogo Yagi, Toru Murata, Akihiro Hakumura, Katsuhiko Kumon, and Shota Tatsuta.

Catchers (5 overall):

Kensuke Kondo, Shimizu Yukokoro, Shota Ono, Takumi Oshima, and Ryo Ishikawa.

Infielders (9 overall):

Kenshi Sugiya, Brandon Laird, Takuya Nakashima, Go Matsumoto, Ryo Watanabe, Tatsuya Morimoto, Kazunari Ishii, Yoko Shunzen, and Kengo Ota.

Outfielders (6 overall):

Haruki Nishikawa, Hiromi Oka, Daiki Asama, Taishi Ota, Yuya Taniguchi, and Ryosuke Kishisato.