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The story
A 5ch thread lit up over news that Orix had given infielder Yuma Tonkyu (29) a release notice, with the team reportedly planning to re-sign him on a developmental contract instead. Tonkyu drew attention in 2023 by winning the batting title with one of the smallest plate-appearance totals in history, but he’s now undergone major surgery combining a meniscus reconstruction, a high tibial osteotomy, and an autologous osteochondral graft on his right knee, and is expected to miss the entire upcoming season as well. In the thread, some expressed shock, recalling that Ichiro had once singled him out for praise, while others pointed out that switching players to developmental contracts is being used as a way to dodge free-agent compensation and to free up active-roster spots — sparking a debate over how the developmental system is being run.
What people said
Ichiro also raved about Asano from the Giants, so basically the guy just doesn't have a great eye for talent
He's got a rehab from major surgery that'll likely keep him out all of next year too
Even so, is there really a team that'd want him on their active roster next year?
Though it'd be wild if another team swooped in and grabbed him
Probably for the best — it would've been the worst Triple Crown in history
If he'd actually won it there, Kondo might've burned out completely and been a dead man walking after that
Though honestly, that's not really what the developmental system was meant for
There's no salary cap on developmental contracts, so teams can get away with using it like this
Put a cap on developmental roster slots and give injured guys an actual injured list
They should just make a proper injured list already — what's the holdup?
It's serious enough that nobody who's had the same surgery has ever made it back to the top team
Most recently, Seibu's Okada had a similar operation but never returned to the first team and retired two years later
There's been so much buzz around the wave of Tommy John guys that I had no idea about this one
Rough, especially at an age where he still had plenty of career left
Keeping a roster spot open for someone who might never come back would be a waste anyway
It's also partly about protecting his roster spot via developmental status
They're signing Tokoda, after all
He underwent a large-scale operation combining the following three procedures at once:
• Right knee medial meniscus reconstruction
• Right knee high tibial osteotomy
• Right knee autologous osteochondral graft
It's an extremely major surgery with very few precedents of players returning to the pros, but Tonkyu himself has vowed to make a comeback with an unbreakable spirit, saying, "If there's no precedent, I'll just set one."
No team is seriously going to want the current Tonkyu — demoted to developmental with zero timeline for a return — as a free-agent compensation pick
Yeah, this is rough.
He's probably only just about able to jog lightly at this point
At the very least, anyone who's previously been on the active roster shouldn't be exempt, or it'll just keep getting abused
That aside, would you actually want Tonkyu — who's got over a year of rehab left — as your compensation pick?
If he comes cheap, plenty of teams would still take him
The players you usually get as compensation picks are pretty mediocre anyway, so I'd bet a lot of teams would rather take someone like Tonkyu even mid-rehab
Why does the players' union just let this slide?
Tomiyama, who also got dropped to developmental after Tommy John surgery, defended the team at his contract-renewal press conference
Probably matters a lot that the players themselves don't seem to mind
The players' union wants to abolish the compensation-pick system entirely anyway, so of course they'd skip this
Seems like he'd have a better shot in the Central League
Reform it for whose sake? If he couldn't be moved to developmental, he'd just get released outright
If it drops to something like 3 million yen, that'd be hard to swallow
There's no salary cap on developmental contracts
It's just about freeing up an active-roster spot while he's being treated
If he's on a multi-year deal, he still gets paid under that same contract
Though the incentive-based portion would probably get cut
Do that and you'd probably see a huge spike in pitchers refusing Tommy John surgery
Since they could end up released over roster limits after the surgery and wind up out of baseball entirely
If anything, this IS the compassionate option — he's likely to miss the whole season again next year
Background and Key Points of the Debate
In 2023, Tonkyu cleared the minimum plate-appearance requirement and led the league in batting average to win the batting title, but due to the gap in plate appearances compared to Kenya Kondo, some called him “the weakest batting champion in history” — he was a divisive figure even back then. A developmental contract is a roster category separate from the active (“ichigun-eligible”) roster: there’s no salary cap, but players on it are usually exempt from being claimed as free-agent compensation, which lets teams use it as a way to free up an active roster spot while still holding onto an injured core player. The thread also noted that because Japanese baseball lacks a proper injured-list system, this kind of practice hasn’t become a major issue even for the players’ union. One point readers often get wrong is that a “release notice” doesn’t automatically mean retirement or leaving the team — as in this case, a player can be re-signed as a developmental player while still aiming for a comeback.
*This article is an excerpt and summary based on the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “Orix Gives Release Notice to Yuma Tonkyu (29). 2023 Batting Champion.”
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