Track record:
The Lions have taken a player who they think can help immediately since 2013. Cho fits the quota as compared from past yrars. Here are the previous free agent compensation decisions when given the opportunity:
2013:
P Taiki Nakago from the China Lotte Marines after losing Hideaki Wakui
IF Ryota Wakiya from the Yomiuri Giants after losing Yasuyuki Kataoka
2016:
Cash option from the Rakuten Eagles after losing Takayuki Kishi
2017:
P Hayato Takagi from the Yomiuri Giants after losing Ryoma Nogami
2018:
P Tetsuya Utsumi from the Yomiuri Giants after losing Ginjiro Sumitani
Cash option from the Rakuten Eagles after losing Hideto Asamura
2022:
P Yaku Cho from the Orix Buffaloes after losing Tomoya Mori
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(13 protected): Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Hiroya Miyagi, Taisuke Yamaoka, Daiki Tajima, Yoshihisa Hirano, Ren Mukunoki, Shota Abe, Yuki Udagawa, Soichiro Yamazaki, Motoki Higa, Hitomi Honda, Taisuke Kondo, Yuta Kuroki
Available: Ryota Muranishi, Daichi Takeyasu, Kohei Suzuki, Yuito Mae, Kaede Yokoyama, Atsuya Kogita, Nobuyoshi Yamada, Taisei Urishihara, Shunpeita Yamashita, Ryo Yoshida, Kohei Azuma, Yaku Cho
Most of the pitchers listed are no-brainers. One could debate that Hirano was available if they think he's too old and not valuable enough to protect for someone younger. However, he was an important closer for the team last season.
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Catchers:
(2 protected): Kenya Wakatsuki, Yuma Tongu
Available: Ryo Ishikawa, Takuma Nakagawa, Sho Fukunaga
The Buffaloes recently acquired Ryo Ishikawa in a trade with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. They needed to protect him if they saw value, but given the Lions situation, it's doubtful they would pluck Ishikawa of all players.
Orix also lost Torai Fushimi in domestic free agency, but Tongu and Wakatsuki were no-brainers to protect here.
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Infielders:
(6 protected): Yuma Mune, Keita Nakagawa, Ryoichi Adachi, Tomoya Noguchi, Ryo Ota, Kotaro Kurebayashi
Available: Ryota Ishioka, Masahiro Nishino, Koji Oshiro, Tatsuya Yamaashi, Seiichiro Oshita, Sho Gibo
The infield is also clear cut on who to keep. Adachi is up there in age, but he had value to the team last season. Everyone else protected saw significant ichi-gun time to be protected.
Nishino was the interesting option as he didn't play much, yet when healthy, he can be an effective bat on the infield. His issue is not staying healthy.
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Outfielders:
(7 protected): Masataka Yoshida, Shuhei Fukuda, Kodai Sano, Yutaro Sugimoto, Ryoto Kita, Ryoma Ikeda, Haruto Watanabe
Available: Kendai Gen, Yuya Oda, Takahiro Okada, Yukikazu Sano
Despite Yoshida being posted and reaching an agreement with the Boston Red Sox, he didn't sign the dotted line and the transaction couldn't officially go through when the protected list was sent on December 9. His agreement was pending a physical.
The Lions would have gotten the posting fee money if Yoshida was unprotected and they claimed him.
This opened the door for an extra player being exposed as a result since they needed to protect him in order for the posting process to go through. If anyone was rooting for chaos, it would have been a silly scenario if Yoshida was unprotected.
Everyone else from Sugimoto and Fukuda are clear cut starters to frequent options off the bench. This is unit doesn't haven't the most value for the Lions to claim.
Takahiro Okada was potentially the most famous name available, but he's also past his prime and it was a tempting marketing option for the Lions much like how they saw Tetsuya Utsumi from the Giants. Okada had a marginal 2020 and his last great season was 2017.
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Factoring who was on the Japan Series team for 2022, it easy to come up with several pitchers for this protected list while some guys were exposed for having a good 2021, but not the best 2022.
Personally had Ryo Yoshida, Nobuyoshi Yamada and even Kohei Suzuki as options among the pitchers available. Might have been tempted to go for Nishino given he fell out of favor, but relieved the Lions didn't select Okada for the marketing purposes.
Yamashita could have been an interesting option too if unprotected, given he was a former first round pick and is in his early 20s, but we'll assume the pitcher position was mostly protected.
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We also polled our Japanese following on Twitter.
オリックスからの補償は何がいい?
— Graveyard Baseball (@GraveyardBall) November 15, 2022
What do you want as compensation for the loss of Mori?
拡散してください @64Uni_Lions@nerimamo @Cape_Lions #森友哉 #seibulions #埼玉西武ライオンズ #bs2022
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