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The story
Giants catcher Seiji Kobayashi (37) is set to announce his retirement once the Climax Series wraps up, with plans firming up for him to move into a coaching role next season. This year he appeared in just 20 games and batted a dismal .077, and with the DH rule set to arrive next season — expected to make Otsuka, Kishida, Kai, and Yamase the core of the catching corps — finding playing time had become an uphill battle. On 5ch’s “Live Everything G” thread, reactions split between fans welcoming the coaching move as recognition of his defense and blocking skills, and others delivering harsher verdicts citing his weak batting numbers and how he was used in the 2024 Climax Series.
What people said
They're gonna draft a few more catchers this year too, so there's no real need to keep Kobayashi around — he's pretty much set to become the battery coach in place of Sugiuchi, all for the new manager's sake.
If it only took that much to give up on him, they'd already written him off back in the 2024 Climax Series.
Handsome and a Giants lifer through and through.
Manager Kobayashi could actually happen someday.
His merch should keep selling even once he's a coach.
Can't really blame people for saying the Giants' inability to cut this guy loose is exactly their weakness.
They might even go after Watanabe.
So his contribution level is actually high then.
Guess the folks on the ground recognize contributions that don't show up in the stat sheet.
He's well-liked, isn't he?
When he's on the bench he's always hustling with the cheering and playing catch, after all.
What's "Koba-man"?
Yamase hit .300 in the minors last year and that alone got him way overrated.
He's hitting .200 this year — he clearly doesn't have the goods yet.
Satozaki: "Lots of people criticize catchers' pitch-calling, but pitches almost never go exactly as called — pitch-calling is all results-based judgment!!"
Same guy, Satozaki, commentating on a Giants game: "Kobayashi's pitch-calling is garbage!!!"
Not sure which game this was, but recently there was some oddball call like a "nothing but fastballs and sliders with Raidel" restriction — if it gets the out, you might still grumble a little, but hey, it technically becomes "the right read." If he gets hit, though, it's just garbage, plain and simple.
Well, the third-string catcher basically just sits around with no playing time anyway, so it makes sense to hand that role to a defense-first veteran.
Better to let the young guys actually get game reps down in the minors.
Even if he was riding a hot streak at the plate back then.
When you consider the other two catchers were Sumitani and Ono, it really was a weak era for the position.
(Btw, I'm a Carp fan)
Could we just take him as the player-compensation pick in a Sakakura free-agent deal? (NPB's system letting a team that loses a free agent draft a player from the signing club as compensation)
What exactly makes you think he's better than Kai?
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
The NPB is set to introduce the DH rule starting next season, and thread commenters see the Giants’ catching corps shaping up as a four-way competition between Takumi Otsuka, Yukiyo Kishida, Takuya Kai, and Shinnosuke Yamase. While Seiji Kobayashi has long drawn praise for his defense and blocking, his playing time itself was limited, and as his .077 batting average shows, adding value at the plate proved difficult. Opinions in the thread were divided: some welcomed his move into coaching as recognition of his defensive skill and contributions to the team, while others took a harsher line, pointing to how he was deployed in the 2024 Climax Series and arguing he’d “already been written off.” Also worth noting as backdrop to this personnel speculation is the expected departure of outfield/defense coach Hashigami (rendered simply as “Hashigami” in the original text).
※This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (“Live Everything G”) thread “Giants’ Seiji Kobayashi (37), .077 average in 20 games, set to declare retirement after the Climax Series and become a coach.”
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