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The story
Reports say a free-agent move is all but certain for Chiba Lotte Marines left-hander Kazuya Kojima. This season he was sent down to the minors after just two starts, unable to even get through five innings in either outing — and that episode is being cited as a source of friction between him and manager Saburo. In the thread, opinions split over how to judge Kojima’s pitching and career numbers, while a side debate broke out over manager Saburo’s own playing-career record and his managerial skills.
Sat, Oct 31, 18:13
Nikkan Gendai DIGITAL
Lotte’s Kazuya Kojima likely to leave as a free agent… the friction with manager Saburo smoldering since being “sent to the minors after just 2 season-opening starts”
Source: topics.smt.docomo.ne.jp / Original article here
What people said
Are you talking about our Orix, you jerk?
When a first-rate player ends up on top, it turns into 'why can't you just do something this simple?!' — that's exactly what makes it hard.
There's an old saying: a great player doesn't necessarily make a great manager…
devastatingly effective
on Taihei Saburo.
(wordplay — comedian Taihei Saburo shares manager Saburo's nickname)
Kazuya Kojima:
"It's 'O'jima, dammit!!"
(a riff on people botching his surname)
That's pretty well known already, isn't it.
Any team besides Hanshin or SoftBank wouldn't mind having him around. Just comes down to the money.
And yet Hanshin is apparently the most eager of all.
It's not about the money — the real question is whether a team would still take him even with a compensation pick attached. Teams without much young talent outside their protected list could make it work.
Calling that treatment unfair is honestly pretty naive. Well, maybe he'd cut it in a second-tier league.
You can't lump a guy who's thrown 140+ innings for 5 straight years — and 100+ for 7 straight including this one — in with some scrub who broke down after 3 years.
Don't you dare call a pro with 101 career starts and 39 wins 'garbage.' Who do you think you are, the god of baseball?
For pitchers, staying healthy is what counts — the ones who break down are the garbage. In reality most guys do break down, which is exactly why a durable-but-bad-ERA guy like Kojima ends up rated highly.
If 40 wins makes you garbage, then most of pro baseball is sub-garbage — meaning your standard is just broken.
Win totals don't matter at all. For a pitcher it's all about eating innings. If you say 'that's wrong,' then you and I just have different standards for what we want from a pitcher, and there's no point arguing.
Would that line work on Ochiai or Kudo?
It works on top-tier players out of PL Gakuen.
Background and key points of this discussion
Free agency is a system letting players who meet conditions such as years of domestic service choose their next team freely; a move triggers either a player-compensation pick or a cash payment to the team they’re leaving. The core of this story isn’t really the FA process itself but the report that being sent to the minors after just two season-opening starts is what triggered the move — the causal link between the team’s handling of him and his decision to exercise free agency is, strictly speaking, only what’s being reported. Where the thread split was over how to judge Kojima: one camp valued his ability to log innings without injury over his ERA, while the other questioned his career numbers outright. The criticism of the manager’s handling also settled into the general point that playing-career achievements and managerial ability are separate things — worth noting this unfolded more as a debate over managerial decisions than a personal attack.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “[Lotte] Kazuya Kojima likely headed for free agency… friction with manager Saburo smoldering since being “sent to the minors after just 2 season-opening starts”.”
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