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The story
Former Chunichi Dragons manager Kazuyoshi Tatsunami (57) appeared as a guest on Nippon Broadcasting’s “Meikyukai Radio” on September 3, and while sharing his thoughts on his successor, manager Kazuki Inoue (55), he criticized the excessive bashing managers face. The backdrop is Chunichi’s continued poor results this season, which have fueled manager-bashing on social media. In the corresponding 5ch thread, opinions split over where responsibility lies — some argued “the manager should bear responsibility for results,” while others countered that “players get just as much flak on social media” and “some teams see results change dramatically with a new manager.”
September 3, 2026, 18:34 | Baseball
Sports Nippon (Sponichi Annex) Reporting Team
Former Chunichi Dragons manager Kazuyoshi Tatsunami (57) appeared as a guest on Nippon Broadcasting’s “Show Up Nighter 60th Anniversary: Meikyukai Radio” (Thursdays, 5:10 p.m.), aired on the 3rd. While sharing his thoughts on his successor, current Chunichi manager Kazuki Inoue (55), he took a moment to criticize the excessive backlash managers face.
Source: sponichi.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
useless players just get sent down to the farm team.
Guess that's exactly where the difference shows.
some managers, like Inoue, are still loved.
Honestly,
the way Inoue loses is incredible —
he blows past our wildest expectations lol
My guess is it's actually Kuwata that Chunichi's been quietly courting. (Masumi Kuwata, former ace pitcher turned analyst)
Everyone's pretty civil now.
Unlike the old days, online criticism is brutal now.
Guess you just shouldn't look at it.
very Japanese, honestly.
There've probably always been people who didn't want to be manager.
Looks like "no great managers ever come out of PL Gakuen" is about to get confirmed again.
Can Lotte's Saburo break the streak? (Saburo, Lotte Marines manager and fellow PL Gakuen alum)
Fighting for your manager —
that's baseball.
He's way too old for that now.
These days he's just living it up with his grandkids.
That's why they don't blow up regardless of the results.
The Carp are the same way, but the big difference is attendance — that's where Chunichi (Chuni-Dora) falls short.
There must be people who are simply cut out to be managers — think about whether someone has a great baseball mind, not just a great playing record.
But would players even listen to a manager who didn't have a strong playing record?
There's no guarantee a great player becomes a great manager, but a manager's own track record definitely helps when it comes to keeping a team in line.
Front office, absolute geniuses ＼(^o^)／
but in baseball, the ultimate strongest lineup is just nine guys who can homer every at-bat —
so where's the room for a manager's skill to even matter? Just being a motivator?
Things like setting defensive positions, converting guys between starter and reliever, and figuring out who to use.
Pitching changes too — screw those up and you're the target of criticism.
The motivator factor is actually huge.
Look at Hoshino at the Beijing Olympics — that fell apart because of it and he got axed. (Senichi Hoshino, Japan's 2008 Olympic baseball manager)
They win like 1 in every 3 games, so it's basically like pulling a gacha.
I hear Vantelin Dome has really good access and great AC, so it's perfect for killing time.
Kyocera Dome has just as good access too, but apparently attendance there is lackluster.
Background and Talking Points
How much responsibility for poor results in pro baseball falls on the manager is a debate that resurfaces every year, partly because it’s hard to objectively verify whether in-game decisions were right or wrong. In the thread, the view that “results on the field are the players’ responsibility” sits alongside the view that “the manager should own the outcomes of decisions like personnel use and pitching changes,” making clear this isn’t a case where one side is simply right. Because baseball, unlike soccer, doesn’t tie wins and losses as directly to how a system meshes with player ability, it’s hard to measure exactly how much a manager’s decisions affect results — which is likely why drawing motivation out of players tends to become the de facto yardstick for judging a manager. One point readers can easily get wrong is lumping the intensity of social-media criticism together as “a phenomenon unique to today”: the thread itself shows a range of views, with some commenters saying “criticism online is brutal” and others saying “criticism these days is actually more civil,” suggesting there’s no single consistent take.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “[666] Kazuyoshi Tatsunami Speaks Out — Is Poor Results Really All on the Manager? “Players Get Protected,” “Nobody Might Want to Be Manager Anymore”“.
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