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The story
During a Japan Series game, a decision to intentionally walk the struggling Kurihara and instead pitch to the red-hot Yamamoto Yuta became a hot topic. Yamamoto is a catcher who was traded from the Yokohama DeNA BayStars earlier this season, and the move backfired when he delivered a game-tying two-run hit. On the forum, alongside questions about the strategy itself — “why avoid the cold batter just to face the hot one?” — commenters also revisited the BayStars front office’s decision to let Yamamoto go, which fed into mockery of the team’s data-driven roster philosophy.
What people said
That's exactly what the analytics said, isn't it? Amateurs need to stop running their mouths.
Maeda gets rocky in the first inning, but nobody touches him after that — it's a lock.
This is just a dig at Kimura Yota, right? "You got beat by the guy you decided you didn't need — Yamamoto — so what now?"
Giving up one run would've been the worst-case-acceptable outcome, but giving up two is the real problem.
Matsuo and Furuichi aren't to blame here
Like with Shuto earlier — if it's a spot where it's a double either way, diving for it is fine.
But that wasn't a spot to dive.
The story's come full circle.
SoftBank's a 'data team' too, reminder
The idea that Yokohama is even a "data team" is hard to believe in the first place.
Everyone on the roster struggles defensively, and outside the middle of the order, nobody's willing to take a walk.
If you actually evaluated by the data, you'd factor in that a young player suddenly breaking out is a huge uncertainty — which means trading away Yamamoto makes no sense.
Matsuo's approach and Furuichi's contact quality are both well below average, which makes it even more questionable.
The accurate picture here is: a team that cherry-picks convenient stats to look like a "data team" lost to an actual data-driven team.
Lol, turns out SoftBank had been eyeing Yamamoto this whole time
Whether you use data and whether you use data well are two different things
🤖 "WIN PROBABILITY 0%. FURTHER EFFORT IS FUTILE."
Because the AI told them to do it 😭
Actually, at this rate the only team that hasn't lost every game is the Lions, who won once
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
An intentional walk is a formal strategic move a battery uses to avoid facing a particular batter — here, the decision was to walk the struggling Kurihara without hesitation and instead face Yamamoto Yuta. Yamamoto is a catcher who was traded from the Yokohama DeNA BayStars to SoftBank earlier this season, and “Kimura Yota,” who comes up repeatedly in the thread, refers to the GM who led the BayStars’ front office at the time. In recent years, Yokohama has been known for a roster philosophy that favors power and analytics over defense and on-base ability, earning it nicknames like “AI-managed team” and “data team” — so having the very player they let go deliver the game-tying hit became a target for mockery. Some posts reference a past tendency for SoftBank’s pitcher Maeda to struggle in the first inning but settle down afterward, but this is just an impression shared within the thread, not a statistically confirmed fact. Likewise, the remark about Yokohama’s past Japan Series record (the “8 straight losses” comment) is a one-off observation citing the Lions series as an example, and shouldn’t be taken as a guarantee of how this series will turn out.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G, a general live-discussion board) thread “[Sad News] BayStars Intentionally Walk Kurihara → Yamamoto Yuta Ties Game with Two-Run Hit.”
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