The impact of the new management

Tigers are reporting that season ticket sales are down this year - in fact that they are under initial expectations. Sakai owner attributed this to the fact that Tigers hadn't been playing well in open sen and hadn't made any major moves in the off season apart from replacing the manager. I would submit that the new manager is the problem. Tigers fans are not going to spend enormous amounts of money on a team managed by someone chosen because he is an OB rather than an experienced and able manager especially in a recession. Most Tigers fans pay very little attention to the open sen which is after all not the real season. After a series of competent years we are now back to the incompetent years.

Meanwhile, Yokohama has almost sold out Opening Day at Yokohama Stadium, and it's a week day! The hiring of an exciting, charismatic manager like Nakahata as manager looks better every day in comparison, heh?

Exactly - a real manager, a new owner and new players. There is hope things might change - it might prove to be ill-founded but it brings the fans in. Tigers are suffering from the same old, same old syndrome.

That's an interesting choice of words. I don't think that many people refer to Nakahata-kantoku as a "real manager." I know John and Jim don't on their weekly (bi-weekly during the off season) podcasts where they continue to belittle DeNA's choice. I think that there's value in having a manager who inspires players. That was Nagashima's greatest strength when he managed the Giants, much more so than his strategies.

A real manager should be able to motivate people to improve their performance and do their best. Whether this is through knowledge and management techniques or emotion - the result should be an improvement in motivation. Ideally, the combination of both styles is what is needed - Nagashima was strategically challenged but as you note his inspirational abilities helped. Nakahata seems to be making a difference though whether he is able to continue this performance into the season will be the big test.

Agree on all counts.

Really surprised at the ticket sales. Noticed that there still tickets left for ALL kaimaku series games at Kyocera Dome next weekend, which is pretty much unheard of. I think there was a lot of excitement when Mayumi came in, but with Wada it's more of a wait-and-see attitude. I'm taking the same approach.