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The story
Yomiuri Giants infielder Hayato Sakamoto and pitcher Masahiro Tanaka (both 37) will continue their playing careers into their 21st professional season next year, team sources confirmed on October 11. Sakamoto struggled to a .175 average as a starter this season but showed clutch instincts as a pinch hitter, batting .333 with 9 RBIs, while Tanaka went 4-4 with a 3.42 ERA and turned in a strong outing on September 19 against the Chunichi Dragons, allowing just one run over seven innings. The announcement sparked debate on the 5ch sports-news board Geisoku Sokuho+, with some users arguing the pair “can still contribute” and others saying they “should make way for younger players.” The thread also touched on the Giants’ thin bench of marquee names and Sakamoto’s standing at No. 9 on the all-time NPB hits list.
Yomiuri Giants infielder Hayato Sakamoto (37) and pitcher Masahiro Tanaka (37) will continue their playing careers into their 21st professional season next year, team sources confirmed on the 11th.
Sakamoto finished the season with a .175 average, 5 home runs, and 19 RBIs, but his clutch hitting held up as a pinch hitter, where he batted .333 with 1 home run and 9 RBIs. The team also praised his strong work ethic, calling him a role model for the rest of the roster. In that day’s game against DeNA, trailing 1-4 in the eighth, he came in to pinch-hit and flied out to left. “I just couldn’t come through for the team in the end,” he said. “I was disappointing, so I’m going to think things over carefully and go from there.” After wrestling with the decision for much of the season, he ultimately chose to aim for a comeback next year.
Tanaka, who reached 200 combined wins between Japan and the majors last season, went 4-4 with a 3.42 ERA this year. He flashed his old form on September 19 against Chunichi at Tokyo Dome, picking up the win with seven innings of one-run ball in the thick of the pennant race. The duo — teammates since elementary school and now the oldest players on the roster — will keep anchoring the Giants next season.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
( * )
Seriously, this.
The famous names are completely gone now.
The only Giants I even know are Sakamoto, Tanaka, and Togo.
For the Tigers it's just manager Fujikawa.
Keep grinding, don't get soft on me.
How many years has it been since Handkerchief disappeared?
Then they could be the "up-and-coming young players" there.
Dark ages, man lol
#1 Isao Harimoto — 3,085
#2 Katsuya Nomura — 2,901
#3 Sadaharu Oh — 2,786
#4 Hiromitsu Kadota — 2,566
#5 Sachio Kinugasa — 2,543
#5 Yutaka Fukumoto — 2,543
#7 Tomoaki Kanemoto — 2,539
#8 Kazuyoshi Tatsunami — 2,480
#9 Hayato Sakamoto — 2,474 ★
#10 Shigeo Nagashima — 2,471
★ = active player
These days, anyone good enough to crack this list just heads to MLB instead.
The top of the chart might never get updated again.
People were hoping he might even pass Harimoto.
Guess catching Kanemoto is looking tough now too.
but Tanaka's done a lot for Japanese baseball as a whole — holding onto him like this really shows the Giants acting like they own the league.
Had no idea.
Get Tanaka to hook you up with an idol or something.
#1 Yu Darvish ★ 208 (NPB 93 + MLB 115)
#2 Masahiro Tanaka ★ 204 (NPB 126 + MLB 78)
#3 Hiroki Kuroda 203 (NPB 124 + MLB 79)
#4 Hideo Nomo 201 (NPB 78 + MLB 123)
#5 Kazuhisa Ishii 182 (NPB 143 + MLB 39)
#6 Masumi Kuwata 173 (NPB 173 + MLB 0)
#7 Daisuke Matsuzaka 170 (NPB 114 + MLB 56)
#7 Hisashi Iwakuma 170 (NPB 107 + MLB 63)
#9 Kenta Maeda ★ 169 (NPB 101 + MLB 68)
#10 Tsuyoshi Wada 165 (NPB 160 + MLB 5)
★ = still active in Japan or MLB
Guess 'Daimajin' (the 'Great Demon God,' closer Kazuhiro Sasaki's old nickname) wasn't such a big deal after all
Racking up wins is kind of a badge of shame for a closer, you know (it usually means he blew the lead first).
Sakamoto, if it's around 50 million yen, I guess that's fine.
Did it take Maeda a while to adjust to the NPB ball?
He really turned it on down the stretch.
Background and Key Points of the Debate
Sakamoto and Tanaka are the same age and, as the article notes, have been teammates since elementary school. Sakamoto struggled to a .175 average as a starter this season but kept his clutch reputation intact with a .333 mark as a pinch hitter, while Tanaka went 4-4 but showed he still has something left, including a complete-game win over Chunichi in September — these are the main grounds cited for their continuing to play. The thread split between posters who felt the pair are “still needed as contributors” and those who argued they “can’t hold up anymore and are blocking chances for younger players,” with the latter camp also grumbling about their high salaries and the fact that, unlike players on other teams, they aren’t taking pay cuts. The thread also contained a fair amount of crude personal insults, which have been excluded from this writeup. Two points worth clarifying for context, since the original article doesn’t spell them out: Tanaka isn’t a Giants lifer — he came over from the Rakuten Eagles (as comment 52 shows, some posters weren’t even aware of the move) — and Sakamoto’s career hit total already ranks 9th all-time in NPB history at 2,474 hits.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Geisoku Sokuho+) thread “[Baseball] Giants’ Sakamoto and Tanaka to Continue Playing Into Their 21st Pro Season.”
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