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It’s been revealed that the Chunichi Dragons will bring in club legend Takeshi Yamasaki (57), who hit 403 career home runs, as batting coach for next season. He and new manager Kimiyasu Kudo (63) are senior and junior alumni of Aikodai Meiden High School, and fans are hoping the hometown duo can turn around the team’s offense. Chunichi finished dead last this season for the first time in two years, marking a sixth straight year in the B Class (the lower half of the league standings), and despite the newly installed “Home Run Wing” seating meant to boost scoring, the team still ranked near the bottom of the league in both home runs and runs scored. On 5ch, the move sparked both optimism about bringing in a proven ex-player as coach and skepticism along the lines of “playing ability and coaching ability are two different things,” with the thread also drifting into chatter about Yamasaki’s personality and old anecdotes from his playing days.
It was learned on the 16th that the Chunichi Dragons will bring in club alumnus Takeshi Yamasaki (57) as batting coach for next season. New manager Kimiyasu Kudo (63) is from the same home prefecture of Aichi and is Yamasaki’s senior from Aikodai Meiden High School. The team is entrusting the 403-career-homer legend with fixing its long-standing offensive woes.
Yamasaki joined Chunichi in 1987 and won his first home run title in 1996 with 39 homers. After a stint with Orix, he moved to Rakuten, where in 2007 he became only the third player in history to win home run titles in both the Central and Pacific Leagues. He retired after the 2013 season and has since worked as a baseball commentator. His track record is beyond reproach, and this spring he even served as a guest coach for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters.
Chunichi finished at the bottom of the league this season for the first time in two years, extending its slump to six straight years in the B Class. Although the newly built Home Run Wing at their home Banteren Dome had fans expecting more homers, the team’s 121 home runs ranked only third in the league, while its .228 team batting average and 478 runs scored ranked fifth and fourth, respectively.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
If this flies, then Tanishige deserves a pass too, huh
I really hate this crappy Japanese habit of blacklisting someone from work because their grown adult kid screwed up
Too bad, but good luck out there
The fact that the front office can push through a coaching hire like this means he's not really a manager with full authority
Can't expect much from next season either, then
Full authority?
Kudo's already said from the start that he's leaving all the roster building, draft included, entirely to the front office
He was mentored by Nomura, for what it's worth, but…
I just don't have a good image of this guy
The way he set his bat down before charging the mound at Galvez — that's manly
Kiyohara straight up threw his bat first and then went in with a flying knee
If he can't, they'll just cut him loose quick, no?
He's already back doing TV commentary like normal
It's something a 29-year-old grown man did
And apparently he'd been out of contact for over a year
No idea where he was or what he was doing
Blaming the parent for that doesn't really make sense
Yoshihiko Takahashi — Baserunning coach
Ken Hirano — Defense coach
Motonobu Tanishige — Battery coach
Way too many big names
So Ichiro didn't go?
What happened to Tatsu again after he got all that theory-based coaching?
He's the only one who actually revived his career by putting Nomura's teachings into practice
Though they were both such geniuses that who knows if today's young players could even follow it
Even Sadaharu Oh never managed that one
Usually guys stop hitting once they switch leagues, so that's genuinely impressive
Shinichi Eto's also one of only two players ever to win batting titles in both leagues
Even Isao Harimoto never pulled that off
Chunichi Dragons alumni really are something, lol
I mean, guys good enough to win a home run title usually don't get traded to begin with
It's not as impressive as people make it sound
Especially back in the days before free agency existed
Not Nomura from his Rakuten days — who did he study under back when he was a young player just starting out?
There's no coach or manager from his Chunichi days that he's ever thanked, so there wasn't really anyone he 'studied under'
Nomura's the only one he's ever expressed gratitude toward
Background and Key Talking Points
Chunichi finished at the bottom of the league this season for the first time in two years, marking a sixth straight year in the B Class. Despite installing the Home Run Wing at their home Banteren Dome — designed to make homers easier to hit — the team still only ranked third in the league in home runs, with team batting average and runs scored both near the bottom. This coaching hire reflects a push to fix the team’s long-running inability to hit from the offensive side. During his playing days, Yamasaki won a home run title with Chunichi before moving to Orix and then Rakuten, where he became only the third player in history to win home run titles in both the Central and Pacific Leagues. The thread split between those pointing out that playing success doesn’t automatically guarantee coaching ability, and those praising him as one of the few players who actually produced results by putting Katsuya Nomura’s teachings into practice — a recurring debate in sports coaching over whether a ‘theory-driven’ or ‘fiery, hands-on’ style works better. Yamasaki is also someone who made headlines in the past for confronting umpires and clashing with other managers, but that’s a separate issue from his playing-days reputation and shouldn’t be conflated with the merits of this coaching appointment.
*This article is an excerpt and summary based on the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “[Baseball] Chunichi brings in Takeshi Yamasaki as batting coach — teaming up with new manager Kimiyasu Kudo, his senior from Aikodai Meiden High — club alumnus with 403 career homers and an unimpeachable track record“.
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