Five rookies to participate in Ichi-gun camp for Spring Training

The Saitama Seibu Lions announced their Spring Training camp lists on Monday. Both "A" camp and "B" camp will begin on February 1 with different days of closing and breaks inbetween.

Most notably, five rookies will be partaking in the ichi-gun camp as they were draft picks last October. Here are the lists for both A-camp and B-camp:

*Indicates 2018 Draft pick.
^ Indicates 2018 ikusei pick
& Indicates player under ikusei contract

A-camp: February 1-18 in Nango, Miyazaki

The A-camp team will join the B-camp from February 20-24 when it ends. February 4th, 9th and 14th will be rest days.

Pitchers (21): Tatsuya Imai, Tatsushi Masuda, Wataru Matsumoto*, Shinsaburo Tawata, Hiromasa Saito, Hayato Takagi, Shogo Noda, Katsunori Hirai, Kaito Awatsu*, Tetsuya Utsumi, Ryosuke Moriwaki, Daiki Enokida, Yasuo Sano, Ichiro Tamura, Makoto Aiuchi, Kyle Martin, Keisuke Honda, Shota Takekuma, Zach Neal, Deunte Heath, Chun-Lin Kuo

Catchers (3): Tomoya Mori, Hitoto Komazuki, Shota Nakata

Infielders (8): Kakeru Yamanobe*, Shuta Tonosaki, Sosuke Genda, Ryusei Sato*, Hotaka Yamakawa, Haruka Yamada, Kazuki Kaneko, Takeya "Okawari-kun" Nakamura

Outfielders (6): Takumi Kuriyama, Yuji Kaneko, Fumikazu Kimura, Shohei Suzuki, "Aito" Takeda, Shogo Akiyama

Any player can be swapped from A-camp and B-camp. 

===

B-camp: February 1-24 in Haruno, Kochi

The Lions will use a different park in Kochi City on 2/20 and 2/24. Rest days will be on February 4th, 9th, 14th, 19th and 25th.

Pitchers (19): Yutaro Watanabe*, Kona Takahashi, Tatsuya Oishi, Ken Togame, Shunta Nakatsuka, Hirotaka Koishi, Sho Ito, Ryuya Ogawa, Fabio Castillo, Jen-Lei Liao, Tsubasa Kokuba, Tadasuke Minamikawa, Kaima Taira, Naoaki Matsumoto, Koki Fujita, Tomomi Takahashi (&), Kaito Yoza (&), Aoi Tono ^, Jiyu Okubo ^

Catchers (4): Masatoshi Okada, Shoya Makino*, Masato Saito (&), Daichi Nakaguma ^

Infielders (6): Daichi Mizuguchi, Kyohei Nagae, Nien Ting Wu, Manaya Nishikawa, Ryusei Tsunashima, Ernesto Mejia

Outfielders (5): Masato Kumashiro, Shogo Saito, Daisuke Togawa, Seiji Kawagoe, Wataru Takagi

===

With Sato, Yamanobe, W. Matsumoto, Awatsu and Moriwaki all getting a look at the ichi-gun A-camp, it should be interesting and open competition for a few pitcher spots. It's also clear the Lions are looking at the third catcher role with Komazuki and Nakata getting a look from Tsuji while second catcher Okada will overlook the ni-gun B-camp.

The biggest competition is at second base and lots of unknown players to the world in K. Kaneko, Sato, Yamada and Yamanobe can all take the spot with Hideto Asamura gone.

Castillo and Mejia in ni-gun camp shows what the Lions are thinking of both players as depth with the latter being paid a hefty amount in a contract year. Castillo could crack a rotation spot, but took a big pay cut to stay with the Lions after he was injured in the second half.

===

Follow us on Twitter @GraveyardBall