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The story
Nippon-Ham has signed free agents for four straight years, and Orix for three, yet both teams keep struggling — prompting the question “why can’t they win?” on 5ch’s Nandemo Jikkyou G (a general live-discussion board). Posters brought up a remark once attributed to Kensuke Kondoh — “Nippon-Ham are just making a racket” — and the thread split over why all that big-name reinforcement hasn’t translated into results.
What people said
Are we even allowed to say Kuwabara and Ishii are actually working out?
Most of the Hawks' position players are homegrown, huh
Well, their main dish Kondoh was an FA signing too
Feels like they just dump stupid money on guys who are only in it for the cash
Come on, quit trashing Unkou (mocking nickname for Nippon-Ham) for paying Arihara 3 billion yen lol
Kensuke Kondoh: "Nippon-Ham are just making a racket. Nothing like a team that's serious about winning."
Kensuke Kondoh: "I want to win. I want to show the fans what winning looks like."
Wait, are the "money-driven players" you mean guys like Arihara?
Because the only ones who think that about Kondoh are the Treasures (mocking nickname for Nippon-Ham's diehard fans)
Though Mori did put up good numbers in year one
Nishikawa's been plenty good though
Guess the strain on their bodies is climbing right along with it
He's just turning into another Yamakawa
Even Hawks fans have been saying he's starting to look like Yamakawa
There are still Treasures out there clinging to that baseless tabloid fantasy…
That they can still believe that nonsense after watching Arihara this year — that's some serious devotion, like a religion
Seibu barely reinforced at all and still got to 2nd, so of course SoftBank — who's been reinforcing like crazy — just keeps winning it all
So then what's the deal with Nippon-Ham, reinforcing like crazy and still busy extending their title drought?
True, and hey, the team that signed the league's wins leader is right there in the pennant race too!
Even fully healthy, Ham would still be a B-Class (bottom-half) team
Though to be fair, people really were saying Yokohama had completely fallen off
Before the stress fracture, sure, he looked like he was declining
Half of Nippon-Ham's regulars are outsiders (players acquired from other teams) though
Even a team with Kondoh and Yamakawa batting 3rd and 4th, Arihara as the ace, and Osuna closing games out was fun to root for, right?
Were there really that many outsiders?
The lineup changes so often anyway that it's hard to tell who's even a regular
Funny thing is, a few years back it was the Treasures shouting "Reinforcing through free agency is bad! Outside hires are embarrassing!"…
Because apart from those guys, everyone [on SoftBank] was homegrown — they topped the Pacific League in homegrown WAR too
Those imports were hurt and absent so often they were barely even on the field
Nothing like Nippon-Ham, where half the regulars are outsiders — why the sudden flip?
I'd think import Reyes counts as an outsider too
In that case Moinelo would be one as well
What's 'SB'?
Making the Climax Series (Japan's postseason round) out of Es Con Field feels like the bare minimum, no?
Unkou's persecution complex is genuinely hilarious
SoftBank has zero interest in that, come on
A team that doesn't make any moves clearly isn't trying to win it all
The reason Seibu is ranked this high is thanks to Kuwabara
Wait, whaaat??
Background and Key Points
Nippon-Ham’s four straight years of free-agent spending include Kensuke Kondoh (from SoftBank) and Kotaro Kurihara, while Orix has similarly kept adding names for three years running; both are Pacific League clubs chasing SoftBank, whose roster is built overwhelmingly on drafted, homegrown talent even though its own big-ticket FA name is Kondoh’s old teammate group and Yamakawa, last added three years ago. Japan’s FA system lets players with enough registered years jump teams for cash, and it’s historically been viewed by fans as a shortcut that a “real” contender shouldn’t need — which is exactly the tension the thread keeps circling.
The split in the thread isn’t over whether spending works in principle — it’s over blame. One camp points at the front office, arguing money is being thrown at players “only in it for the cash,” reviving the old (and contested) Kondoh quote about Nippon-Ham “just making a racket.” The other camp pushes back with specifics: Arihara reportedly turned down more SoftBank money to stay, Kondoh has publicly said he wants to win, and injuries to arms like Miyagi’s and Shunpeta’s, not the signings themselves, explain the standings. A side argument breaks out over what even counts as “homegrown” once you include drafted-but-imported players like Reyes or Moinelo.
What the thread never quite reckons with is survivorship bias: SoftBank’s model looks vindicated partly because its non-homegrown pieces have been hurt or absent, not because outside talent underperforms league-wide — nobody in the thread runs the counterfactual of what SoftBank’s record looks like with a healthy import rotation. Readers should also note NPB’s FA system is stricter than MLB’s, so “four straight years of signings” is a smaller, costlier pool of players than it may sound to an outside audience.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of a 5ch thread on the Nandemo Jikkyou G (general live-discussion) board: 「[Urgent Wanted] Why Are Nippon-Ham (4 Straight Years of FA Signings) and Orix (3 Straight Years) So Weak?」.
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