The managerial shuffle for the 2025 season ended late last week with a non-change - Tsuyoshi Shinjyo is returning to manage the Fighters for at least next season. I was kind of surprised as I had felt he had been hired to keep the seat warm for Atsunori Inaba eventually but the team's second place finish this year apparently bought him another season.
So now that the dust's settled, there'll be five teams with a different manager than they started last season with, only one of which - Hajime Miki of the Eagles - has ever managed before.
And Miki was only a manager for a single season. The four rookie managers for 2025 will be Kazuki Inoue of the Dragons, Kyuji Fujikawa of the Tigers, Mamoru Kishida of the Buffaloes and Fumiya Nishiguchi of the Lions. All four played played for the teams they'll be managing which isn't a huge surprise for two of the teams. The Tigers haven't had a manager who hasn't played for the team since Senichi Hoshino in 2002-03 and the Lions haven't since Masaaki Mori from 1986-94. Two of the four have experience playing in North America (Fujikawa with the Cubs and Rangers from 2013-15 and
Nishiguchi briefly with the Sioux City Explorers in 1995) which means NPB will have five such managers next year, joining Shinjyo, Masato Yoshii of the Marines and Shingo Takatsu of the Swallows. Actually if you include Hawaii in "North America" there's seven in all as both Inoue and Hiroki Kokubo of the Hawks played in the Hawaiian Winter League in the 90's.
Here are cards of the four rookie managers:
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| 2001 Upper Deck #54 |
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| 2012 Coris #22 |
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| 2023 Front Runner Buffaloes Season Summary #14 |
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| 2011 Lions Fan Club #13 |
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