Roki Sasaki is not currently with the Lotte Marines’ major league club, but the ripples he has caused in Japan’s pro baseball pond have yet to settle.
On Tuesday, we had one more opinion about how Sasaki’s being handled from someone who knows a thing about the pitfalls of failing to protect good pitchers arms, Hall of Famer Hiroshi Gondo, and some more fallout from umpire Kazuyuki Shirai’s mid-game etiquette lesson to Lotte’s young star on Sunday.
Continue reading Something to talk aboutAlex Ramirez, whose five-year tenure with the DeNA BayStars was the second-longest in NPB among foreign-born managers next to Bobby Valentines’ seven with the Lotte Marines, will not remain with the Central League club in 2021, the club’s chief executive, Kazuaki Mihara told the Sankei Sports.
Despite a sometimes subtle media campaign run by people around the team to paint Ramirez’s managing in an unfavorable light, the club said it recognized the Venezuelan-born skipper’s gifts and said they wanted to retain his services after he quit the dugout job.
“We talked different times, but he said that for the time being he would like to spend valuable time with his family. We respect his stance and won’t offer him a contract,” Mihara said.
The franchise’s .443 winning percentage since its inception in 1950 to 2015, the year before Ramirez took over, is the worst of any franchise in existence since NPB went to 12 teams in 1958. Ramirez’s 692 games are third-most in franchise history. His .499 winning percentage is second-best among managers who managed more than one season to Hiroshi Gondo’s .541.
Gondo and the two who managed longer, Osamu Mihara and Kaoru Betto are all Hall of Famers and Ramirez will likely join them within a few years.
