From our other sites
The story
It was learned on the 21st that Hanshin Tigers batting coach Hiroki Uemoto (40) will step down at the end of this season. He reportedly told the club himself right after the team’s Climax Series elimination was confirmed following the October 17 game against DeNA. This season has already seen coaches Shuji Fujimoto and Eiichi Koyano both decide to leave, making Uemoto the third departure. Head coach Yutaka Wada is also expected to be reassigned to a roving coordinator role, making this an unusually large wave of personnel changes for a team that just won back-to-back league titles. On a 5ch (Geinou/Sports Breaking News+) thread, opinions split over the reasons behind the departures — from doubts about manager Kyuji Fujikawa’s handling of the team and his character, to other factors like a lack of player development.
[Hanshin] Another shockwave! Even batting coach Hiroki Uemoto is leaving… He’d given notice right after the Climax Series elimination on the 17th. The third departure after coaches Fujimoto and Koyano — an unusual shakeup of the position-player coaching staff
It was learned on the 21st that Hanshin’s batting coach Hiroki Uemoto (40) will leave the team at the end of this season. He gave notice to the club after the October 17 game against DeNA, in which the team was eliminated in the final stage of the Climax Series.
Coach Uemoto, who spent his entire 12-year playing career with the Tigers, served as the team’s academy coach and as manager of Tigers Women before taking over as the farm team’s position-player coach in 2024.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Koyano — ex-Nippon Ham, an outsider
Uemoto — from Hiroshima, an outsider
Hard to say if Fujikawa alone is to blame.
If it's gotten this bad, it's not just the on-field staff falling apart — something behind the scenes must be broken too.
Guess this is it.
I don't think Yokohama [DeNA] is all that different from the Chunichi Dragons or zombie Yakult either.
Get the tuning just slightly wrong and even a back-to-back champion ends up like this.
Hiroshima, Yakult, and Chunichi are all still playing Showa-era baseball (old, outdated style), which is why they're weak.
There's no reason to be this attached to Fujikawa.
No team anywhere fires a manager who just won two straight regular-season titles.
You can already see him sticking around until the team crashes, then quitting — just like Takatsu did.
The Central League's so sloppy overall that Kudo's Chunichi might flip it all in just one year — which would be kind of pathetic in its own way.
Compared to what 'Sen-chan' [nickname for former manager Senichi Hoshino] did back in the day, this is still nothing.
More like 'first place in the Japan Series qualifiers.'
The third-base coaching and in-game strategy got slammed constantly too.
They won back-to-back titles, but that doesn't mean everything was going well.
At least this time it happened after the season ended, so it's better.
Fujikawa won't last much longer either.
It's not like just anyone could pull that off.
I'm personally fine with Kyuji [Fujikawa], but I think 'Donden' [nickname for a manager famous for dramatic turnarounds] would've gotten the same results.
He wouldn't give actual baseball instruction, but he'd speak his mind to players, the manager, and coaches on the mental side — scolding and encouraging them. He's got a sense of humor too.
He'd also make a good shield against the 'mass-media trash' (slang for the press).
on the hitting side basically nobody came up through the ranks at all.
Maekawa was about the only 'maybe, if he hadn't gotten injured' case.
Background and Key Points of This Topic
What stands out about this round of personnel moves is that Uemoto’s departure wasn’t a firing by the club — he reportedly approached the team himself right after the Climax Series elimination on the 17th. Combined with coaches Fujimoto and Koyano also deciding to leave, and head coach Wada being moved to a roving coordinator role, this adds up to an unusually large staff shakeup for a team that had just won back-to-back league titles. Opinions on the thread split between those blaming manager Kyuji Fujikawa’s handling of the team and his personality, and those who saw it as the result of a thin roster beyond the core players that made proper player development difficult. It’s worth noting that while the original article makes clear the departure was initiated by Uemoto himself, most of the comments focus on pinning responsibility on the manager personally, with only a few pointing to structural issues like the club’s development system or lack of roster depth.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports Breaking News+) thread “[Baseball] Hanshin, another shockwave! Even coach Hiroki Uemoto is leaving… Third unusual departure after coaches Fujimoto and Koyano, as head coach Wada also moves to roving coordinator.”
Leave a Reply