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The story
After former manager Shinnosuke Abe was arrested and stepped down in May over an alleged assault on a family member, acting manager Hidehiko Hashigami (60) has led the Yomiuri Giants to second place in the league standings as of late August, chasing the Hanshin Tigers. Following this success, it’s been reported that several teams — including the Nippon-Ham Fighters and Orix Buffaloes — are interested in bringing him in for next season, and the Giants are reportedly considering creating a head coach position to keep him from leaving. The thread’s main debate centered on the Giants’ long-standing unwritten rule that only a former star player who came up through the team’s own ranks can become manager, with critics blasting the club for prioritizing name value over ability, while others argued the tradition should be respected.
Multiple Central and Pacific League teams eyeing him closely
Acting manager Hidehiko Hashigami (60) took over the Giants after former manager Shinnosuke Abe (47) was arrested by the Metropolitan Police Department in May on suspicion of assaulting a family member and stepped down. Through the end of August, Hashigami has kept the team in a strong fight for second place against Hanshin, who are chasing a second straight league title, but his future beyond this season remains undecided.
Hashigami has been at the helm since interleague play began on May 26.
Source: friday.kodansha.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
The Giants without Abe are the best~
Abe brought him in because he relied on him.
That's basically been the pattern for Yomiuri all along —
nothing but incompetent figurehead managers.
Lol, that's a completely fair jab
Giants fans are the ones who feel that the most
Reyes: 'Take care of me next year too'
A pro baseball manager has to be an ace pitcher or cleanup hitter.
Maybe start by putting players' names on the uniforms — right now you can't even tell who's who, so how are fans supposed to cheer for them.
Chunichi: 'That's not true at all'
Newspapers, lol.
The era of drawing fans on a manager's name recognition is over, old man.
Watanabe was actually in favor of bringing in outside managers
Watanabe was actually a reformist type —
he was a leftist back in his student days, after all
Wasn't it Watanabe who pushed for Hoshino?
You need the star power and track record befitting the face of the sport's flagship team.
Don't talk about it using Pacific League values, where all you have to worry about is your own team's popularity.
That's not Pacific League values, that's Central League values (Chunichi, DeNA, Yakult, Hiroshima, Hanshin)…
It's basically decided that the Giants' manager has to be a career-Giants ace pitcher or cleanup hitter.
Even Hideki Matsui, who went on to the majors, faced opposition from team alumni over the idea.
For the same reason, Kuwata and Uehara were never really options either.
There's also a theory that Yoshinobu Takahashi was made manager partly because there were signs he might leave for another team seeking playing time — and once that happens, you can no longer make someone Giants manager.
I've never heard of a Pacific League manager getting fired over domestic violence
It's basically at the level where if you started a baby in the lineup you'd get a People's Honor Award.
If that's what people want, just go watch high school baseball.
The top of NPB should literally be where the best of the best clash for supremacy —
turning it into a development league is just wrong.
People say the number of .300 hitters has dropped lately, but of course it has if you're running player development at the top level.
The Giants used to not be like that, but starting around Abe's time they began doing development-focused baseball too.
NPB's level is low enough that it still works out somehow, but
older players who can't keep up with pitch speeds going up probably aren't needed anymore —
pitchers whose stuff has slowed down, hitters whose dynamic vision has declined, fielders whose range has shrunk, that sort of thing.
Well, compared to older guys, young players do have more upside and are more fun to watch —
compared to older guys, that is.
Top-tier players like Yanagita are still performing even around 40, but
most guys decline and retire by 35.
It's basically like saying there's something more important than winning the championship.
Most teams have homegrown managers anyway
Seriously ridiculous.
It's not just about being homegrown —
on top of that, you have to be a former cleanup hitter or ace.
If it were just 'homegrown,' teams like Seibu, Hiroshima, and Hanshin already do that.
Wasn't Seibu's Manager Mori not homegrown?
Seibu and Hanshin aren't homegrown-only, though
Nioka and Kuwata got results with the farm team and were well-liked by the players, but the idiot front office backed power-harasser Abe instead, lol.
He's said publicly that he couldn't sleep while he was manager, so he probably figures helping out on his son's farm and doing commentary work a few times a year suits him better.
For the record, Kudo is actually a natural long sleeper.
The fact that they got stronger once Abe was gone proves that, lol
That comes down to the manager's approach — some managers, like Senichi Hoshino, delegate the tactical side to others
Kind of like Kyosuke Sasaki, maybe?
Kind of like the 'director' on Tantei! Knight Scoop (a Japanese TV show famous for its running gag about a long-serving 'acting' chief)
Anyone who becomes manager mid-season stays 'acting' until that season ends
From the Giants' standpoint, they probably don't want Hashigami using the title 'manager' outright —
just 'acting,' and no further.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
The Giants have traditionally followed an unwritten rule limiting the manager’s job to a homegrown former cleanup hitter or ace pitcher — even Hideki Matsui, despite his success in MLB, reportedly faced opposition from team alumni when his name came up for the post, and some view Yoshinobu Takahashi’s appointment as manager as partly aimed at preventing him from transferring to another team. Acting manager Hashigami, who was not a star hitter during his playing days, falls outside this convention, and the differing views in the thread reflect differing opinions on this “unwritten rule” itself. Note that former manager Shinnosuke Abe was arrested and stepped down this past May over an alleged assault on a family member, and references to “Abe” in the thread build on this already-reported fact. The fact that the team’s results improved under Hashigami was also cited as evidence supporting doubts about the Giants’ homegrown-only principle.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (Geinou/Sports Express+) thread “[Baseball] Nippon-Ham, Orix and other teams “lock on” to Giants’ acting manager Hidehiko Hashigami… Giants may block the move with a “head coach” post [Ailuropoda melanoleuca★].”
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