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Michael Westbay
(aka westbaystars)
Founder
1. Signing Hoshino as manager, and
2. Signing free agent Kataoka from the Fighters.
After Nomura-kantoku resigned due to a family "scandal," Hanshin went after "Mr. Dragons," Hoshino Senichi, who had just taken off his uniform after serving as Chunichi's skipper a total of two terms and 11 years.
Unlike when Nomura-kantoku took over the Tigers, Hoshino-kantoku appears to be very much into restructuring the team. I never thought that Nomura's heart was in it. But Hoshino-kantoku looks like he's been rejuvinated.
Of interest, in one poll taken in the Nagoya area, 90% of the 300 respondence said that they were Hoshino fans, and 48% said that they were against the idea of Hoshino managing a rival team.
Nonetheless, Hoshino's first task after signing was to talk with free agent Kataoka (Nippon Ham). It was just two days after that talk that Kataoka came to his decision on whether to stay or go - and he chose to follow his boyhood dream of playing at Koshien. The decision was a hard one as the Fighters had given him every opportunity to become the player he is today, and had never given him reason to want to leave. Kataoka said that even up until 2:00 a.m. on the day of his announcement he wasn't sure which he would chose.
I see both signings as huge plusses for the Tigers. Yet, they don't appear to be finished. They are still pursuing Orix free agent Taguchi (currently considering either the Majors or Tigers), and Hoshino-kantoku really wants to pull away his right-hand man Shimano from Chunichi (2-gun kantoku).
While the outside temperature is dropping, the stove league is really heating up the Kansai region.