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The story
The fact that the Yomiuri Giants still hadn’t announced their new manager, even with the NPB draft meeting right around the corner, became a hot topic on 5ch’s Nandemo Jikkyou G (live sports chat) board. This season, head coach Tadaki Hashigami took over partway through and ultimately led the team to a second-place finish. While many in the thread voiced disbelief with comments like “seriously, what gives?!”, opinions split between those who think Hashigami should simply be promoted to full manager and those calling for an outside hire, floating names like Yoshinobu Takahashi, Tatsunori Hara, Kimiyasu Kudoh, and Hideki Matsui — all Giants legends. Debate also raged over whether the team should keep up its long-standing tradition of only hiring “homegrown (pure-blood)” managers.
What people said
Though I figure he'd flop at it anyway.
The only upside of making that guy manager is we'd finally stop hearing his bitter, backhanded commentary lol (fans nicknamed him "Negawa" — a mashup of "negative" and Egawa)
If they actually wanted Kudoh, I think they'd have just promoted Hashigami outright by now.
If it were Yoshinobu or Hara, it wouldn't be weird for them to have announced it already.
He fought for the pennant right down to the wire and still finished second.
Where's the reason to drop him?
Well, the final stretch was rough, I'll give you that.
There was clearly momentum building for a Giants comeback, however you slice it.
Second place is pretty thin justification for scrapping the homegrown-manager policy.
The Giants were already strong enough to finish second even back under manager Abe.
and Shin'ichi Murata — the Giants' longtime starting catcher who's coached for years and has head-coach experience too —
both spent their whole careers with the Giants, and yet neither is even in the running.
However you look at it, Saito just isn't cut out to manage the first team.
If that's how it's gonna be, they might as well have stuck with Hashigami and broken the bad old homegrown-only habit while they were at it.
I don't think "homegrown only" is really such a bad tradition though.
It's show business too, so going with a homegrown manager makes sense.
Yeah, even if the team's dirt weak, it's still gotta be a homegrown manager, huh.
If the Giants ever hit a real slump, they might lift the ban.
But right now they're actually getting results, so no.
Some weird guy was in charge at the start, after all.
We're right before the draft now — maybe they're going after someone unexpected?
They probably approached Matsui or Takahashi and got turned down.
Yoshinobu's said he wants to manage, so if the offer comes in, he'll take it.
Either way it breaks the homegrown tradition — question is whether the current front office has the guts to actually pull that off.
Let him stick around another year as a cushion.
Even though under Hashigami they dropped 7 straight to the Tigers — the first time that's happened in 89 years?
Funny, sure, but is that really the kind of thing that gets you a first-team manager job?
In 2001, the Tigers changed managers right after the draft.
The GM will probably stand in and do the picking.
If they make him manager again just because online sympathy pushed for it, that'd be hilarious.
Funny how Giants fans used to relentlessly mock him as the "statue who just takes notes" (a jab at his stiff, expressionless dugout presence and constant note-scribbling), and now they're all hoping for Yoshinobu's return lol
Can't they just make Furuta the commissioner already?
He's bad at communicating with players too — so what exactly is it that keeps his name coming up?
It's his pedigree.
Background and Key Points of This Debate
This season the Giants underwent a change in command, with head coach Tadaki Hashigami taking over from manager Shinnosuke Abe and ultimately guiding the team to a second-place finish. Thread comments referenced specific results under the interim setup, such as “the first seven-game losing streak to the Tigers in 89 years after Hashigami took over,” showing just how split opinions were on his performance as acting manager. The debate broke down into two main threads: first, whether Hashigami should simply be made the full-time manager, and second, whether the Giants should stick with their traditional policy of hiring only “homegrown (pure-blood)” managers or instead bring in an outsider or returning alum like Yoshinobu Takahashi, Tatsunori Hara, or Kimiyasu Kudoh. Some felt second place wasn’t a poor enough result to justify breaking from the homegrown policy, while others felt the team was past the point of insisting on it — no consensus was reached. Note that comments suggesting the team had “approached Matsui or Takahashi and been turned down” are purely speculation within the thread, not based on any official announcement from the club.
※This article is an excerpt and summary based on the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyou G) thread “[Bad News] Giants’ manager still undecided.”
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