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The story
On 5ch’s “Good Morning Coffee” board, a pro baseball thread lit up with talk of each team’s farm (minor-league) games. A 19-year-old developmental-contract left-handed pitcher clocked 150 km/h (about 93 mph), striking out a 25-year-old player who was taken in the second round of the draft — sparking reactions like “He throws better than Matagi!” and “A 25-year-old 2nd-round pick just struck out against a 19-year-old developmental player lol.” Meanwhile, posters lamented the Giants’ struggles to develop young talent, while others praised the depth of the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters’ pitching pipeline, making differences in each team’s player development a central topic of the thread. A chart tracking the Central League’s last-place race was also shared, extending the discussion to the Yakult Swallows’ situation.
What people said
Giants Acting Manager Thread #164
a teenage lefty is throwing 150 (km/h, ~93 mph).
Swallows–Carp (Jingu) 18:00
BayStars–Tigers (Yokohama) 18:00
Marines–Eagles (ZOZO Marine) 18:00
(Swallows–Carp) Yoshimura Kojiro vs. Kuribayashi Yoshinori
(BayStars–Tigers) Taira Kentaro vs. Ito Shoji
(Marines–Eagles) Kojima Kazuya vs. Hayakawa Takahisa
If Yakult loses every remaining game, would they end up in last place? (They already have a losing head-to-head record against the Dragons, right?)
The only one who can go toe-to-toe with that is the almighty Hanshin Tigers…
Guys like Tatsu, Fukushima, and Yanagawa are already regulars in the top team
Something our team's garbage baseball could never understand
Every outing he loads the bases and either barely wriggles out of it or gives up runs — a consistently sloppy pitcher
Reyes is back
What's going on with the other teams?
That's just because they're in the division with the Hayate (a weak farm squad) — that's why their win rate looked high
In fact, both the BayStars and our team also had win rates over .600
their depth is pretty solid
So they just farmed weak teams, huh
Same as the majors
Central division: Chunichi 64 losses, Hayate 81 losses
Western division: Hanshin 63 losses, Hiroshima 63 losses
Background and Key Points of the Discussion
The farm system (minor leagues) is mainly where players in their early twenties gain game experience, serving as a stepping stone to the top team. The moment that drew attention in the thread — a 19-year-old developmental-contract pitcher striking out a 25-year-old second-round draft pick — stood out as an episode highlighting the gap in status between “ikusei” (developmental, non-roster) players and fully contracted players. That said, good performance in the farm league doesn’t automatically guarantee success in the top team; as one poster in the thread pointed out, “he’s only bad once he moves up to the majors,” so it’s worth remembering that differences in the level of competition can heavily affect results. While some voiced doubts about the Giants’ ability to develop young talent, the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters were said to have several pitchers already established on the top team, making differences in player-development systems between clubs an easy point of comparison.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Hello! Project board) thread Giants Acting Manager Thread #165.
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