Some news and moves for you hip-shakers out there. Inoue's backroom organisation has been decided and I'd like to go into a little bit to show you that this is more of a shakeup than just the names.
Backroom shenanigans
We knew about who was coming in late October when it was announced Nobuhiko Matsunaka, Shinichirō Koyama, Yūji Iiyama and Masaaki Koike among others were announced to be joining the coaching team. I speculated how they might fit in but it seems my predictions were only about half right. In this first season of Inoue there are some new titles for coaches we've not seem before indicating a different kind of organisation and hierarchy. Let's get into it and then run a rule over the appointments and their titles.
Firstly, a lot of coaches that were with the farm team at Nagoya ballpark have been promoted along with Inoue. Shota Ono, Yutaka Nakamura, Daisuke Yamai and the dreamboat himself, Takuya Asao will start the year in 1-gun. Yamai had a splash as pitching coach last season before he was replaced by Eiji Ochiai halfway through the year, Asao, Ono and Nakamura are new to their roles at Vantelin Dome. Another change is that of Akinori Otsuka moving to a roving/development role having previously been the first team bullpen coach. Masahiko Morino maintains a batting coach role but now has the additional tag of 'strategist' which may indicate he is in charge of helping hitters with their approach. Of the new faces, Nobuhiko Matsunaka is given the role of hitting coordinator, seemingly elevated above Morino, and looks likely to drive the hitting coaching and philosophy on the top side. Yūji Iiyama similarly gets a newly established role as position player coordinator which may see him help with defense, base-running and hitting. A utility as a player, this role seems to reflect the flexibility he had in his professional career. Naomichi Donoue is the other who maintains the role he took under Tatsunami. This will be his 2nd year as infield defense and baserunning coach. Yutaka Nakamura clearly has the trust of Inoue having worked with each other at the Tigers and the Dragons farm side last season. Nakamura theoretically must have had his contract renewed as he was a mainstay from year one of Tatsunami's management.
My key point of interest is that there seems to now be a hierarchy established. I'm not entirely sure why Asao wasn't just given the role of "bullpen coach" if they were being specific with roles, but giving Matsunaka and Iiyama clearly defined coordinator roles, we may see fewer clashes between coaches which seems to have been a problem with Nori Nakamura (his 'Killing in the Name' approach didn't endear him to Tatsunami) in the last regime. Morino being given a strategist role also clearly delineates responsibility which may end up being more effective than the nebulous 'hitting coach' role that the organisation has traditionally used. This may lead to better communication channels within the organisation and cut through some of the foggy seniority between coaches and players leading to more clear-cut decision-making. The Japanese baseball world is a tricky place to navigate when it comes to social order. Whether that be senior-junior relationships from school or university, old teams, age or even the deference just shown to really good players, creating professional distance or at least some kind of line about who's in charge, I think makes sense in keeping people in the right space. In saying that, this will make or break Matsunaka's coaching career. If it goes right he'll be given the credit and if it goes wrong, he will take the fall.
One interesting part of this staff is Akinori Otsuka's roving role. The Dragons have had roving instructors previously with Alonzo Powell and Mitsuo Tateishi having free reign under Tsuyoshi Yoda, but it may well be that Inoue sees a benefit in keeping Otsuka around the team generally as an instructor rather than as a locked-in coach. Otsuka was largely credited with helping Koki Saito find his form and has also been praised for the tweaks he has offered other pitchers. Theoretically, this ability to offer help to those who need it rather than be stuck with the doldrums of bullpen management and the like may benefit Otsuka and the team.
On the pitching side, I'd expect Yamai to be Inoue right-hand man when it comes to starting pitching and management, with Asao more likely taking on a bullpen coach kind of role.
Overall, I think the 1-gun coaching team certainly shows potential. New faces in tuned roles may be the answer to unlocking more wins.
Now, onto the second team, similarly a lot of new and old but given the promotions to the top team, I feel the farm backroom has been given a good freshen up that will hopefully go a long way to bettering a Dragons development pathway.
The new additions are Masaaki Koike as hitting coordinator, a new pitching duo of Shinichirō Koyama as coordinator and the freshly retired Shinji Tajima with him. Ryōsuke Hirata takes on the outfield defense and base-running role while Kohei Oda drops back to the farm in a familiar battery coach role. Yutō Morikoshi maintains his appointment as infield defense and base-running coach while Masato Kobayashi joins in a development-pitching coach role alongside fellow developmental specialist and position player coordinator, Hiroyuki Watanabe. Finally, Nobumasa Fukuda returns in his role as farm hitting coach.
Here the coordinator roles once again pique interest. Koyama effectively being the head pitching coach given his experience with the Eagles is not surprising. Koyama bounced between pitching coach roles over the last 8-years with Rakuten following his retirement in 2015. Having shared the role with Tsuyoshi Yoda at times, there is an interesting flavour there that might align with Yoda's philosophies as well. Enticing Koike to join the Dragons after a long sting with the Baystars may have been sweetened by a similar role. Koike had a professional career between the Baystars and the Dragons before spending the last decade in the Baystars backroom. It is good to see that the farm is littered with a good mix of experienced coaches who have had success at other organisations with younger, former Dragons players now coaches. Having Tajima and Fukuda in supporting roles may be of some benefit to them in their development as well as take the 'jump in the deep end' kind of organisation they were previously engaged with. The more I consider it, the more I like the farm coaching staff on paper. Now it's up to their individual coaching nous and ability to come together as a team under Eiji Ochiai. Ochiai also comes to the role not inexperienced having previously managed the Samsung Tigers farm team in the KBO.
Between the two teams, I think Inoue has struck a decent balance of outside and inside knowledge. The added layer of organisational change has more clearly defined what each coach is responsible for hopefully giving additional focus for each coach. I also feel Inoue is likely to put more faith in his coaches than Tatsunami. And may take a similar approach to his former manager, Hiromitsu Ochiai in entrusting coaches to do the jobs they were employed to do and allow the specialists to specialise. The other minor point of interest is that between Inoue, Matsunaka, Morino and Iiyama there isn't a right-handed batting coach in the 1-gun team. On the farm, however, both Koike and Fukuda were right-handed hitters. Even Hirata and Watanabe pulled to left field during their careers too. I believe that a good coach should be able to teach either regardless, but it does break with the traditional make-up of the hitting coach teams of the past such as Wada and Morino last year. All pitching coaches are right-handed as well but I think Otsuka proved with Saito that you can still be a good instructor without sharing the same handedness.
Personality-wise, I think there are a lot of good light-hearted people. Matsunaka and Koike seem like hardmen in a way, but both have expressed their want to communicate with players, a keyword at most of the press conferences.
Some other interesting notes, the 2025 farm staff is completely different to the team unveiled by Tatsunami at the beginning of tenure aside from Oda and Watanabe. Toshio Haru was the only farm hitting coach in 2023 while Takashi Ogasawara (now with Softbank), Yamai and Asao took over the pitching. The manager obviously changed to Ochiai from, at the time, Atsushi Kataoka. Morikoshi, and Fukuda were appointed a year or two into Tatsunami's reign. It will be fascinating to see what this new coaching group can do on the farm in particular. Their ability to be instructors to help players develop could play a key role in the Dragons' farm continuing to putter along as it did under Inoue last season.
Finally, for fun, how did I go with my predictions? I went 5/9 with the 1-gun team. Otsuka did not end up being the head coach while Koyama was appointed to the farm with Morino maintaining his hitting coach role was a little bit surprising. I mentioned in my article that many of the appointments could go either way, so it's perhaps not all that surprising in the end. On the farm then, I'm 6/10. If I had 4 wrong with 1-gun I have to have just as many wrong on the farm. I'll take the over 50% success! 11/19 overall.
My friends, it is the off-season so that means we can go back to choofing on that hopium that next year will be a better year. We can at least take solace in knowing that change is afoot. Will it bring the wins that fans crave? That is still yet to be seen, but for now, let's enjoy the optimism that comes with a fresh perspective and a fresh change.
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