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The story
Can the Chunichi Dragons contend for the Central League pennant next year? That question sparked a lively debate on a 5ch live-commentary thread. Posters floated concrete proposals one after another — signing big-name foreign players, moving pitcher Kanamaru to the bullpen, even a trade with SoftBank — while the stubbornly realistic view that “it’s going to be Hanshin, Yomiuri, or Yokohama no matter what” held firm. Some argued that simply shoring up the bullpen could be enough to reach the Climax Series, while others coolly pointed to SoftBank’s dominant 2017 lineup as proof that “the scale of reinforcement needed is on a totally different level.” The thread ended up a mix of hope and resignation.
What people said
For now the real fight is just aiming for 3rd place.
He could turn into another Moinelo-in-relief type (SoftBank's lefty ace, who's lethal out of the pen).
Throw in a starter who can win 25 games too.
Landing even one guy who hits 100 RBIs is an impossible task lol
Well, foreign signings do hit it big once in a while.
The correct move is to decide once next year's final standings are in.
It's going to be Yomiuri, Yokohama, or Hanshin.
The gap between the top tier and the rest is huge though
Honestly the pecking order's been locked in for a while now.
Kondo and Yanagita for starters.
Hanshin 40%
Yomiuri 20%
Yokohama 20%
Chunichi 10%
Hiroshima 5%
Yakult 5%
something like that though.
What about trading with SoftBank for Tohama, Imamiya, and Yamakawa?
1. Akashi (2B) .279, 1 HR, 23 RBI, OPS .691, 5 SB
2. Imamiya (SS) .264, 14 HR, 64 RBI, OPS .739, 15 SB
3. Yanagita (CF) .310, 31 HR, 99 RBI, OPS 1.016, 14 SB
4. Uchikawa (1B) .297, 12 HR, 50 RBI, OPS .851
5. Dess (DH) .262, 35 HR, 103 RBI, OPS .859, 3 SB
6. Nakamura (LF) .270, 6 HR, 42 RBI, OPS .705, 3 SB
7. Matsuda (3B) .264, 24 HR, 71 RBI, OPS .777, 5 SB
8. Uebayashi (RF) .260, 13 HR, 51 RBI, OPS .736, 12 SB
9. Kai (C) .257, 5 HR, 18 RBI, OPS .695, 4 SB
Way too strong
No wonder even the Bay Stars in hyper hot-streak mode would lose to that.
Next year's Central League pennant just goes to whoever wins the 'foreign player gacha' (i.e. gets lucky with import signings)
No team's suddenly getting strong out of nowhere.
• Completely ignores on-base percentage
• Undervalues walks, loves an early swing
• Obsessed with batting average
• Bullpen turns over every year except for Safate
• Values experience over youth (and "experience" really just means age)
• Likes fast runners at the top of the order
• Huge fan of the bunt
• Hypes up "fewer bunts this year" before the season, then it's a bunt festival anyway
• Was basically just carried by Yanagita and Safate
No doubt it's better than Inoue, but still, this is…
Perfect fit for the Chunidora (nickname for the Dragons), regular winners of the 'pace-of-play speed-up award'!
isn't the pitching staff worse than expected somehow?
The starters are decent enough
it's the bullpen…
2nd place is probably the best they'll do again next year.
Quit the 'way too optimistic' challenge.
Go at least .500 on the road.
Get at least even results out of Kanamaru.
Do all that, and it's the pennant.
There's no way they pull off all of that, so it's last place again lol
Nice try, hater
That's the same front office that took a team stuck dead last in home runs forever and got it within 4 of the league lead in just three years — pretty competent, actually.
Background and Key Points of This Debate
The Chunichi Dragons have long been considered a team whose pitching outpaces its offense, and every offseason brings the same recurring argument: hope for major reinforcements clashing with the resigned feeling that “it’s hopeless anyway.” The thread split between an optimistic camp arguing that stacking up concrete moves — big foreign signings, trades — could put the team within reach of the pennant, and a pessimistic camp holding that the talent gap with Hanshin, Yomiuri, and DeNA has already become locked in over the past several years. The 2017 SoftBank lineup brought up in the thread represents the peak of the Kudo Kimiyasu managerial era, when the Hawks had multiple heavy hitters lined up together, and it’s cited here as a comparison to show just how much bigger that scale of reinforcement really was. Worth noting: the proposed trades with SoftBank are low-probability hypotheticals that would hinge on the players’ own wishes, among other things — there’s no sign that actual negotiations between the two clubs are underway.
*This article was excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyō G) thread “Could the Chunichi Dragons Seriously Win It All Next Year?.”
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