Tatsunori Hara is going to be with us for at least another year as Yomiuri Giants manager, which I’m guessing is going to be more fun for fans of the other Central League teams than it is for the Giants’ faithful.
Don’t get me wrong. Hara has real talents. He has never been afraid of opening doors for unheralded players from the minors if they got results. That in itself was revolutionary for a team that used its farm team as a place for anointed future stars to polish their craft while being surrounded by those deemed failures by the organization.
That was a huge thing. Hara was instrumental in getting the Giants to commit to finding more and more games for their developing youngsters. Although he has never demonstrated an advanced understanding of baseball probabilities, Alex Ramirez was inspired by Hara’s organized tactical responses for certain situations, especially those involving pinch-runners. Hara loves his pinch-runners.
After the Giants lost the 2013 Japan Series, the late great Wayne Graczyk complained that Hara used too many different players as interchangeable parts. I don’t necessarily know that is a bad thing in itself. But Hara definitely got to the point where he felt he could pluck any kid from the minors who struck him as a good ballplayer and teach him what he needed to take the next step on the first team.
In 2011, he had a 21-year-old minor league second baseman named Daisuke Fujimura, who could pick it and hustled but couldn’t hit to save his life. That spring, I was at the Giants’ minor league facility in Kawasaki waiting to interview Hirokazu Sawamura, when I saw Hara doing a one-on-one toss-batting drill with Fujimura. Hara would toss the ball to Fujimura and instruct him to miss it.
I asked Hara about it and I wish I could remember his answer because he was convinced it would turn the youngster, who was not an average minor league hitter into someone who could play every day in the Central League.
I have nothing against Hara using pinch-runner Daisuke Masuda as an emergency pitcher to give the bullpen an inning of rest in a blowout, but his seemingly random early hooks for his starting pitchers and switching pitchers in the middle of a plate appearance made me wonder.
Then there was the whole Sho Nakata thing. What’s up with bringing over a guy who was troubled but a big name, pretending it was a stroke of genius and then doubling down on it when it seemingly had no chance of success?
I sometimes think Hara does weird shit so he can dare reporters to challenge him in the post-game presser. He loves that stuff.
- Q: Why did you send the runner with the pitcher at the plate?
- A: “That’s for me to know. I’ll let you think about it and look forward to reading what you write in the paper tomorrow.”
The companion to his unorthodox tactics is his fondness for spouting nonsense like his mentor, Shigeo Nagashima.
After one game at Koshien I remember Hara saying, “I want us to attack in the field and be defensive at the plate.” Nobody at the press scrum had the slightest idea what he was talking about.
When he did get specific questions about tactics and plans, he’ll sometimes say, “that’s a secret. I’ll tell you later,” but never would. I think he just likes sounding mysterious.
Well, hang on to your hats, because we’re in store for at least another year of playing the game, “How smart must Tatsunori Hara think he is for him to try this crazy-ass shit?”
