Per Nikkan Sports and yakyubaka the following pitchers will make up the Dragons starting rotation to begin the year:
Daisuke Yamai - Coming off the best season of his career, hopefully he can follow it up with another quality season
Raul Valdes - New foreign player, he has been very impressive throughout the preseason.
Kenta Asakura - Not sure why he was included, he hasn't had a successful season at ichi-gun since 2009
Yudai Ohno - Currently the most promising young starter Chunichi has
Tomoya Yagi - Free agent pickup, most recently with Orix. He's had a nice preseason and earned his spot. My wife has been rooting for him since she saw him on the TV show "Senryokugai Tsukoku," He's the father of five children.
Yudai Kawai - Solid last year in 18 starts, should be a good end of the rotation guy
Overall looks to be an improvement over last year. It seems unlikely that Asakura will remain in the rotation for long. Tatsura Hamada, Shinji Iwata, Junki Ito or someone else will probably take his spot sooner rather than later. Former ace, Kazuki Yoshimi, has pitched frequently and fairly well this preseason but is still working his way back from injury. Hopefully he will return to the rotation at some point this year.
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