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The story
A thread went up on 5ch’s Nandemo Jikkyo G board about how the Hanshin Tigers — stacked with star names like Konomoto, Nakano, Morishita, Sato Teruaki, Oyama, Sakamoto, Murakami, Takahashi, Saiki, and Kudo — are struggling in the pennant race. Despite a roster that should overwhelm every other team on paper, the Tigers can’t close games out, and posters pointed to the shaky bullpen beyond Kudo and Doris, thin depth at shortstop and pinch-hitter, and the front office’s lax approach to reinforcements as the reasons why. Some defended Oyama by citing his league rankings in batting average, home runs, and RBIs, and the thread’s central debate became how to reconcile the team’s on-paper strength with its actual results.
What people said
Don't just fire back an answer that fast
Acting manager Hashigami
Abe Shinnosuke's daughter
The AI that gave Abe Shinnosuke's daughter spot-on advice and ended up getting Abe fired
Don't make excuses
On a normal team, just having Satoteru and Morishita would be enough to score runs even if everyone else hit like a pitcher
Plenty of people actually picked the Giants for A-class
Takadera's OPS is under .600 though
7th in batting average
9th in home runs
4th in RBIs
That's a seriously good No. 5 hitter
No way, that's a stretch
A Hanshin without Sato Teruaki could honestly end up weaker than Hiroshima is right now
Nah, it's the currently loaded Yokohama that's winning it
If he actually wanted to win a title, he'd stick around
Honestly if they dropped the homegrown-only policy, they'd probably get stronger
Like Yokohama and Hiroshima.
Yokohama's 11-13 against them though
Hanshin and Chunichi are the only ones actually struggling against the 🧟 (a jab calling the Giants an undead team that won't stay down)
The real problem is on Hanshin's end for only managing an even record against those same Yokohama and Hiroshima teams
Does anyone seriously think he's staying?
Who are you even talking about?
He's the type who gets complacent fast, so his hot streaks never last
Ideally they'd rotate guys in, but Fujikawa basically runs the same lineup every time
They've got the money — why do they keep slacking on reinforcements?
Because everyone kept hyping it up like "the homegrown-talent kingdom is the best, yeaaaah!"
That's not the spot to spend money on
They're slacking on reinforcements, but shortstop is exactly where they should be investing
Not even trying to fill that hole makes zero sense
Background and Key Points of the Debate
NPB standings aren’t decided by how star-studded a lineup looks on paper. A point raised repeatedly in the thread was that, relative to the quality of the rotation and the middle of the order, a thin bullpen and bench tend to swing games — a classic mismatch between fans judging team strength by name value and past achievements versus how the team is actually deployed on the field. Some posts defended Oyama’s numbers by citing his league rankings in batting average, home runs, and RBIs, but it’s worth noting these are mid-season snapshots, not a fixed final verdict. There were also many calls to develop and reinforce the shortstop position, while opinions in the thread were split over how the team uses its foreign-player roster spots and its homegrown-first team-building policy. Behind the simple question of “why can’t a team with a superior roster win it all” lies a more complicated story involving the balance of in-game strategy and bench management, rather than just individual player ability.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “Hanshin Tigers: “We’ve got Konomoto, Nakano, Morishita, Sato, Oyama, Sakamoto, Murakami, Takahashi, Saiki, Kudo” — Here’s why this team couldn’t win the pennant.”
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