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The story
While the SoftBank Hawks and DeNA BayStars face off in the Japan Series, teams across the league are already shaping their staff and rosters for next season. The Yomiuri Giants are reportedly set to bring in former manager Hiroyuki Takahashi as head coach under incoming manager Hideki Matsui. In the past, a former manager taking a coaching job with another team or returning to their old club was often viewed as a “demotion” or even “disrespectful,” but in recent years this kind of move has become increasingly common and is turning into a trend. On 5ch’s Geinou/Sports Breaking News+ board, posters discussed past cases of former managers moving into coaching roles, the roster Takahashi had to work with during his time as Giants manager, and commentator Tatsuro Hirooka’s take on new manager Matsui.
Giants’ New Matsui Regime Likely to Bring In Hiroyuki Takahashi as Head Coach — Why Hiring Former Managers as Coaches No Longer Carries a Stigma
While the SoftBank Hawks and DeNA BayStars battle it out in the Japan Series, teams that have already wrapped up their season are moving ahead with building their staff for next year.
One emerging “trend” in the process: former managers taking on coaching roles — other than manager — with their old team or a new one.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
That only worked because it's the Fighters — no way that flies with the Giants or Tigers
he got forced into sudden retirement and made manager on the spot, so it's not like he failed as manager — he might just be better suited to coaching
If even Nagashima could pull it off, he can too. Actually, did Nagashima even have coaching experience?
What about Nagashima, whose whole career was people bending over backwards for him (sontaku, excessive deference)?
The second Nagashima era's big-spending ways were something else
but he was a Japanese-American who held U.S. citizenship, so I told myself that's just how it goes for foreign nationals
Futa Nakanishi, who was manager Ogi's right-hand man, was himself originally a player-manager for the Nishitetsu Lions
Kobayashi, and who else was it…
Did either of them ever win a title after that?
Yeah, these days I don't recognize the players at all anymore
Kiichi Miyazawa works too
even switching teams, staying on as a pro baseball coach long-term is a pretty unstable gig that only a handful ever manage
They're this old with no real work experience or qualifications outside baseball — they don't exactly have other options
Already has.
"Manager Matsui? No good at all."
The day after the inauguration press conference, we asked Tatsuro Hirooka (94) — the legendary shortstop who helped build the Giants' second golden era — for his take, and that was his immediate answer. He went on:
"Even if Matsui does all the right things, there's no one in today's Giants — no, in Japan — who'd even recognize it.
That's the real problem. And when the results aren't there, Japan just fires people without a second thought…
Even if Matsui tries to apply what he learned in America, and even if the substance is good,
nobody understands it, so they only look at the results and go, 'Guess even Matsui couldn't cut it,' and fire him just like that.
He's still catching too much heat, so start him off in the front office doing desk work
No, he didn't — that was Koichi Tabuchi as head coach
I'm all for Matsui as manager, though, so Takahashi should rack up results as head coach now, and once Matsui retires, he can take another shot at managing
That's because they forced him into retirement and made him manager right away just to distract from Hara's 100-million-yen scandal
Front office = president/board of directors
Manager = sales department head
Head coach = section manager
Coaches = team leaders
Players = the floor staff
What always gets me is that when the manager or coaches change and the policy does a full 180, it's the players on the floor who pay for it.
I'd like at least someone to stick around for continuity
That varies a lot team to team
So once you're no good as manager, the only job left is TV commentary? Come on
That's basically Tsuneo Horiuchi for you
#HidekiMatsui New manager greeted the staff at the team office 💪
For Yoshinobu too, working under a manager probably suits him better than being the manager himself
Background and Key Points
The original article, distributed via Yahoo! News, covers an emerging trend heading into next season: former managers taking coaching jobs with other teams or their old clubs without it being treated as a “demotion.” In the thread, many posters said they could no longer recall what kind of roster Hiroyuki Takahashi had to work with during his time as Giants manager from 2016 to 2019, while others pointed to earlier precedents of former managers moving straight into coaching roles, such as the Dragons’ Wally Yonamine and the Lions’ Futoshi Nakanishi. Worth noting: the headline’s “likely to take the job” reflects media speculation at the time of reporting, not an official team announcement. The discussion of Takahashi’s personal circumstances stems from unconfirmed tabloid reporting, and posters in the thread themselves questioned its accuracy. Tatsuro Hirooka’s assessment of new manager Matsui is also quoted directly from his own remarks.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports Breaking News+) thread “[Baseball] Giants: Under Matsui’s New Regime, Hiroyuki Takahashi Likely to Become Head Coach… Why Hiring Former Managers as Coaches No Longer Carries a Stigma.”
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