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The story
A poster who says they’ve been watching Yomiuri Giants baseball since 1996 started a thread on 5ch’s Nandemo Jikkyo G board listing out the team’s starting lineup year by year. The 1999 lineup — featuring Toshihisa Nishi, Takayuki Shimizu, Hideki Matsui, Kazuhiro Kiyohara, and Yoshinobu Takahashi — and the 2002 lineup, which paired Matsui with Kiyohara, drew the most “this is the best” votes, while commenters said the lineup lost its “special feeling” starting around 2013, when Shuichi Murata, Jose Lopez, and John Bowker were in the mix. Comparing those glory years to the current 2026 lineup, posters also disagreed over whether Hayato Sakamoto counts as a star and why the Giants can no longer land big-name free agents.
What people said
I'm going to post the lineup year by year starting from 1996, when I first became old enough to watch baseball.
1 (2B) Toshihisa Nishi
2 (LF) Takayuki Shimizu
3 (CF) Hideki Matsui
4 (1B) Kazuhiro Kiyohara
5 (RF) Yoshinobu Takahashi
6 (3B) Daisuke Motoki
7 (SS) Tomohiro Nioka
8 (C) Shin-ichi Murata
9 (P) Koji Uehara
Yeah, 1999 really is the one
1 (LF) Takayuki Shimizu
2 (SS) Tomohiro Nioka
3 (RF) Yoshinobu Takahashi
4 (CF) Hideki Matsui
5 (1B) Kazuhiro Kiyohara
6 (3B) Satoshi Eto
7 (2B) Toshihisa Nishi
8 (C) Shinnosuke Abe
9 (P) Koji Uehara
By the way, this is my favorite Giants team ever
Yeah, this is the best one, hands down, after watching for 30 years
Sad to think it's already 24 years ago though
The Daiei Hawks had a stacked lineup back then too, but the Giants were still stronger
1 (CF) Hisayoshi Chono
2 (RF) Yoshiyuki Kamei
3 (SS) Hayato Sakamoto
4 (C) Shinnosuke Abe
5 (3B) Shuichi Murata
6 (1B) Jose Lopez
7 (LF) John Bowker
8 (2B) Takayuki Terauchi
9 (P) Tomoyuki Sugano
This is around where it stopped feeling special
Wait, Bowker was already 13 years ago?…
Re: #39
Things really started going downhill once Abe was forced into the cleanup spot in 2013
1 (RF) Hisayoshi Chono
2 (CF) Itaru Hashimoto
3 (SS) Hayato Sakamoto
4 (C) Shinnosuke Abe
5 (LF) Anderson
6 (3B) Shuichi Murata
7 (1B) Jose Lopez
8 (2B) Haruhisa Kataoka
9 (P) Tomoyuki Sugano
I liked Lesley (Anderson)
Wonder if he could've done more if he weren't such a "Spelunker" type (Japanese baseball slang for an injury-prone player, from the old video game)
1 (CF) Hisayoshi Chono
2 (RF) Yoshiyuki Kamei
3 (SS) Hayato Sakamoto
4 (1B) Shinnosuke Abe
5 (3B) Shuichi Murata
6 (LF) Garrett
7 (2B) Cruz
8 (C) Seiji Kobayashi
9 (P) Tomoyuki Sugano
Start of the Yoshinobu Takahashi managerial era
Brings back that feeling from back then of "he could still do it as a pinch hitter…"
The previous year, the best pinch hitter on the team was Yoshinobu himself, with maybe Donki (nickname) or someone a distant second
And on top of that, Ibata was gone too
1 (CF) Dai-Kang Yang
2 (2B) Magee
3 (SS) Hayato Sakamoto
4 (1B) Shinnosuke Abe
5 (3B) Shuichi Murata
6 (LF) Yoshiyuki Kamei
7 (RF) Hisayoshi Chono
8 (C) Seiji Kobayashi
9 (P) Tomoyuki Sugano
Re: #57
Looking at it point by point, this stretch isn't actually bad even after the decline had started
1 (LF) Seiya Matsubara
2 (SS) Hayato Sakamoto
3 (CF) Yoshihiro Maru
4 (3B) Kazuma Okamoto
5 (1B) Wheeler
6 (RF) Takayuki Kajitani
7 (C) Takumi Oshiro
8 (2B) Naoki Yoshikawa
9 (P) Yuki Takahashi
That's pretty rough
1 (2B) Naoki Yoshikawa
2 (SS) Hayato Sakamoto
3 (CF) Yoshihiro Maru
4 (3B) Kazuma Okamoto
5 (1B) Sho Nakata
6 (RF) Polanco
7 (LF) Walker
8 (C) Takumi Oshiro
9 (P) Shosei Togo
1 (LF) Cabbage
2 (CF) Tsuyoshi Matsumoto
3 (SS) Yuta Izumiguchi
4 (1B) Dalbec
5 (C) Yukinori Kishida
6 (RF) Raito Nakayama
7 (3B) Hayato Sakamoto
8 (2B) Shunsuke Urata
9 (P) Kazuyuki Takemaru
No matter how many times I look at it, this year really is the worst
Still impressive they stayed in first-place contention with the "star-studded" Hanshin Tigers until September with this lineup
He's obviously a superstar
I barely ever see him in commercials though
If you haven't gone to the majors, you're not a "star"
Not in this day and age, anyway
If they don't get another Sakamoto- or Okamoto-caliber talent, the team is finished
Well, over a span of decades, every team eventually produces a monster talent
Even a Hanshin team that was all foreigners except Toriya, or one leaning on MLB returnees and imports, managed that before
Please, lay off the Chunichi Dragons
Is there anyone who looks like they could become that guy?
Guys like Asano or Ishizuka don't seem capable of it, right?
That includes players who aren't even born yet, you know
We're talking about a span of decades here
Though I guess poaching stars from other teams makes a bigger impression
If Asano or Ishizuka actually develop properly, they'll get their due credit
Though it's probably not happening
Someone like Dalbec doesn't hold a candle to Ramirez
They actually have a pretty good hit rate scouting their own imports
Not many NPB teams can match the Giants when it comes to homegrown-scouted foreign players
Poaching a player of that caliber again seems impossible now
Everyone just heads to the majors instead
When it comes to money, SoftBank is on another level now
Even if they miss out on someone like Kondo, they still land guys like Moritomo and Yamakawa — it's not that the Giants have declined, it's just that their old-time pull doesn't reach as far anymore and they keep getting beaten to the punch
Come to think of it, did Hideki Matsui — a bona fide superstar — even appear in commercials?
Yeah, he was in tons of them
Background and Key Points of This Debate
The Giants earned their reputation as a “star-studded team” largely thanks to the roster from the late 1990s through the early 2000s, when free agency let them sign top players away from other clubs — Kazuhiro Kiyohara from the Seibu Lions, Satoshi Eto from the Hiroshima Carp — while also fielding homegrown franchise names like Hideki Matsui and Yoshinobu Takahashi. The turning point the thread identifies is around 2013, which coincides with the aging of that core, a growing trend of Japanese stars heading straight to MLB, and the rise of deep-pocketed rivals like SoftBank in the bidding war for top free agents. Opinions split over whether Hayato Sakamoto counts as a “star”: some point to his lack of media and commercial appearances, while others argue his on-field record alone makes him a clear superstar — a subjective debate that the facts cited in the thread (his commercial history, the fact he never went to MLB) don’t really settle either way. It’s also worth noting that some posters attribute the fading “pull” behind the Giants’ big free-agent signings not to the Giants’ own decline, but to rival clubs getting stronger — so this isn’t simply a one-sided knock on the team.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “When Did the Giants Stop Being a Star-Studded Team?.”
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