Tigers season - Ramping up the mediocrity

Tigers faced two major issues throughout the season. These were the ineffectiveness of the coaching/management and the introduction of the new unified ball. The latter was something they couldn't do anything about and every team suffered with a league wide run and hitting reduction. Mayumi demonstrated even more that he couldn't manage and in the end jumped before he was pushed. His resignation from the manager's role was in advance of his team failing to reach the Climax Series and achieving a winning percentage of .493 (one more victory would have given them .500) 68-70-6. Several coaches also stepped down including Kubo who should have gone a lot earlier.

Pitching
With the new ball, Tigers pitching should have done well but struggled. Part of this was due to the catching but also to pitching management. Starting pitchers were asked to go very deep sometimes to 150 pitches (Standridge). Nohmi complained after one outing that he was tired. The unnecessary chasing after complete games was one of Mayumi's black points and in one case when asked about taking a tiring Kubo off he said that the option hadn't even crossed his mind. He managed to appear both clueless and insensitive at the same time. Tigers start was actually rather poor and their pitchers weren't winning except for Standridge and Messenger. Standridge suffered a mid-season meltdown and went for two months without a victory. This could possibly be because of the over-pitching (Mayumi wanted Standridge to break the foreign pitcher complete game record). Standridge did say after one of his losses that he just couldn't throw what he wanted which suggests fatigue. There is doubt among the management as to whether he will be asked back next season because of this performance.
Messenger was the star of the show this time and fully justified the decision to ask him back. He did pitch very well and luckily was not over pitched because a limit had been set for him. Of the Japanese pitchers Kubo suffered from over-pitching and began to pick up injuries. His absence put a great strain on the other pitchers and paired with the lamentable Fujii suffered. Nohmi was again good but with poor support as was Iwata. He really needed a creative catcher to help him and he didn't get one. He did throw some superb games but had a tendency to go in the fifth innings. Age finally caught up with Shimoyanagi but the shocking thing is not this happening but that non of the coaching team had expected it - they had penciled in Shimoyanagi as a starting pitcher.
The main issue for the starters was the propensity of the manager to over-pitch them. If they looked alright they were left in and no attention was paid to pitch limits unless there had been a big blowout the game before. However they also had to deal with poor catching (more of which later) and it was only late in the season when Komiyama started to be used more often that we saw a better and more economical performance. One hopes the new pitching coach Yabu is more aware of limits and presses this on Wada.
Relief pitching was not as effective as before. Mayumi once again demonstrated that he didn't know which relievers to use and when to use them. Relief pitchers were poorly coached and supported and Mayumi's punishment regime demotivated a lot of pitchers. Both Kubota and Kobayashi ended up being ineffective though this may be due to age. The other signing from outside Katoh was next to useless and the scandal is he was signed because he was a left hander not because he was any good. In fact, he had been rejected by BayStars which says something about his quality. Enokida showed he had talent but needed more support and didn't get it. He still has some rough edges to be knocked off. Fukuhara converted to a relief pitcher and was impressive using his experience to good effect. He demonstrated a much more varied range of pitchers and handled some difficult situations well. This and Kyuji Fujikawa were the bright spots of an otherwise rather quiet relief.

Catching
This was a disaster with the level of cluelessness and mismanagement being painfully obvious. Fujii who had been signed as a cover for Johjima rapidly showed himself to be inadequate as a first team catcher and by the end of the season had been largely replaced by Komiyama. His inability to judge the appropriate pitch and fixed calling patterns exposed Tigers time and time again to defeat. His calling was wasteful and frequently showed total inappreciation of his pitchers capabilities at any given moment. In short he was a joke. Johjima wasn't much better struggling with injuries and being too rigid in his calling as well. Komiyama the third catcher used was a big improvement and was economical and intelligent. The catcher who should have been behind the plate, Kanoh, was relegated to the outfield which he hated and didn't cooperate. Whilst Tigers need Johjima's bat he should be second catcher behind Kanoh (expect that when hell freezes over). One has hopes though that Fujii will be relegated to the second team for next season, never to reappear in the first team. Once again a Mayumi signing was a waste of money.

Batting
Arai was the star here winning the Central League RBI title and doing very, very well. Even with this Mayumi had to punish him for 'poor performance' by dropping him down the order. Arai is due free agency this year and it is to be hoped that he still feels Tigers are worth the effort after the disgusting treatment meted out to him. Everyone's numbers were down due to the ball and Brazell was even injured for a while. Mayumi platooned him with a host of lesser guys which it must be said was a complete failure. Of the younger players whom Mayumi brought along only Shibata can be said to show signs of promise. The rest (Uemoto, Shunsuke Fujikawa and Yamato Maeda) can only be called lightweights. They may be fast but their speed wasn't used and they didn't possess the batting ability to exploit this speed. Shunsuke in particular is in his second year of failure. Tigers do need to add power to the lineup and it is interesting to note that I said exactly the same thing in my post season review last year. Tigers were not able to generate enough hits to get the runners round the base for a small ball game and in truth a long ball game might have been a better approach. Wada though was a small ball player par excellence and this had a bearing in the team's hitting. Too many of Tigers batters were unable to hit when needed and run production was drastically down. The use of lightweights who couldn't hit damaged the chance of victory and Tigers relied for run production on four main sources (Arai, Brazell, Toritani, Murton). More use of Ryota Arai next season is a must.
Brazell and Murton will both be asked back but Murton is uncertain to return as he is known to want to play in MLB again. Hirano was excellent once again though his average was down and as noted Shibata after a very shaky start showed considerable promise. Saka once again failed and didn't stay up long. The surprise news was the release of Sakurai and this can only be described as short sighted folly. Kanemoto gave further evidence of his decline but still managed to outhit the younger players. Once again the team was inflicted with Mayumi's ideas on lineups and they were once again embarrassing. Murton at No. 4 is best forgotten and the players who replaced Brazell at No. 5 take one's breath away. Mayumi also had the habit of making these changes halfway through the game and the over-riding impression was that he wanted to introduce his favourites no matter what. The reduction in run scoring ability didn't seem to matter at all.
Pinch hitting revolved around Hiyama (once again professional and excellent) and Sekimoto. These two held things together but the rest of the pinch hitting lineup was pathetic Mayumi's favourites were used too much and we had the stupidity of a pitcher used as a pinch runner. Fujii also made a pinch hitting appearance and given that he is a terrible lineup up hitter one wonders what Mayumi was thinking. The fact that this occurred in a vitally important game is unbelievable and points to his total inability to manage a team.

Coaching
An abysmal performance at almost all levels. Fielding was slack and too many mistakes were made. Instead of addressing these the coaches would introduce a Mayumi favourite who quite frequently made just as many mistakes (Yamato at third was a case in point). Mayumi's insistence on his favourites though gave the batting coaches very little to work with. Arai at least responded to the challenge but the other batters found it difficult. Pitching coaching under Kubo showed how much things had slipped. He was terrible and his well warranted resignation was welcomed with relief. He was one of the ones (Kido and Oka being others) the front office were pushing to resign. However, the chief villian was Mayumi who couldn't motivate and couldn't manage either. Tactical appreciation wasn't there and understanding of the game was lacking. This for a three year manager was not acceptable but it took a lot of fan pressure to push him out. With a new manager Tigers need to rebuild and to restore confidence ejecting the Mayumi favourites and relying on the best players.

Replacing the manager
One also needs to consider this aspect of the Tigers season With Koshien not filling up and fan anger growing one would have thought that the Front Office would have acted quickly. Not a bit of it, they temporised and for a major portion of the season gave the impression that they were going to keep Mayumi come what may. Despite the evidence of his own eyes Sakai-owner continued to place faith in his manager. This was short-sightedness of the first order and it took intense fan pressure to get the sacking of Mayumi on the table. It was getting so bad that Mayumi had to be escorted from Jingu stadium more than once to protect him from angry fans. Nothing probably would have happened but the fear was there. Sakai-owner was also challenged by fans at Koshien and there was an escalating and well planned telephone campaign targeting the Front Office. Fans stayed away from games and for the first time in five years Tigers did not reach the 3 million attendance mark.
Finally, the front office acted and conditions were set for Mayumi's dismissal. As MIchael Westbay has noted though - the policy would have sacked Mayumi not the gutless front office. Having been pushed to do the obvious, the Front Office conducted a poor recruitment process for the next manager. They had two superb options available from outside the organisation, Nashida and Ochiai. The latter is one of the best managers in Japanese baseball history with a formidable record of winning with very poor material. The fans favoured an internal candidate (though they would have accepted Ochiai) Hirata, ex-manager of the ni-gun team but the front office chose Wada, Mayumi's batting coach in a process of stunning opaqueness. Wada has no management experience and will need a chief coach for help. He will get a new team of coaches to help him and has promised a stricter regime. It sounds like he's just as clueless as his predecessor but one hopes that he will be better. There are two factions in Tigers Front Office the internalists and the externalists. The latter won with Hoshino but generally the former are stronger and the least perceptive. They tend to wreck Tigers chances and if they don't get their way wreck the kantoku's tenure (Nomura suffered from internalist wrecking of his tenure). They are the main problem Tigers have to face.