Those could be international stars from leagues like Japan’s NPB or Korea’s KBO, or even prospects in MLB organizations who just don’t have such a big spotlight on them every day during the Minor League season as they do during the WBC.
Plus, since we now have Statcast tracking for the World Baseball Classic, we can see a lot of cool data about those players that we don’t get to see normally — how hard they hit the ball, how far they crush home runs, their pitch velocity and movement and so on.
In the 2023 WBC, for example, we got our first good look at Munetaka Murakami, who slugged a 115.1 mph homer against the U.S. in the championship game that was the hardest-hit homer of the entire tournament.
Sato was an up-and-coming player in 2023, but he didn’t play in the World Baseball Classic. Now, the 26-year-old lefty slugger is a breakout star for NPB’s Hanshin Tigers, and he’s on Japan’s roster for WBC ’26. Sato hit 40 home runs last season, posted a .924 OPS and won his league’s MVP Award — so we want to see those exit velocity numbers in the WBC. You might even remember him crushing a homer off Blake Snell in an exhibition between Hanshin and the Dodgers before the 2025 season-opening Tokyo Series.
The Japanese pitching staff is always one of the most fun to watch at the WBC — just look at how they dominated everyone with splitters on their 2023 championship run. The 2026 team doesn’t have the huge new superstars like Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki on the 2023 squad, but there are still some interesting new arms. One is Taneichi, who’s had three straight seasons of 150-plus strikeouts with the Chiba Lotte Marines, Sasaki’s old team. The 27-year-old right-hander has some interesting stuff, especially his splitter and slider and a four-seamer that gained a couple of mph after he went to Driveline following 2021 Tommy John surgery.
Kim is the top hitter on FanGraphs’ international prospect big board. The Korean third baseman is just 22 years old and has already emerged as a power-speed star in the KBO League. In his age-20 season in 2024, Kim batted .347 with 38 home runs, 40 stolen bases and 109 RBIs, winning the league MVP Award. He missed a lot of the 2025 season due to multiple hamstring injuries, but he’s on Korea’s WBC roster and ready to mash.
Here’s another breakout young slugger from the KBO. Ahn — who’s nicknamed