With their most recent loss, they sit in last place of the Pacific League and have the worst record in NPB through April 21.
Why is this happening? We will dive into some of it.
Franchy Cordero's defense was exposed
The Lions took Cordero off their ichi-gun roster when his defense was becoming a liability, but his offense of being extreme hit or miss was also a problem. It was documented he had decent exit velocity for statcast measurements, but executing them on a consistent basis is the problem.
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Everything goes wrong at once
Sometimes it's a reliever blowing a lead or the game being one hit away. Currently, the Lions sit at a 3-7 record in one run games. To be an A-class team, the record needed to flip, but with the trends of this organization, it doesn't look good.
One day Hiroshi Kaino blows a lead, another day, runners are stranded in scoring position. On a different day, Kona Takahashi has a poor outing.
On paper this trend shouldn't continue, but there's enough flaws to keep the losing coming.
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Offense remains poor since Shogo Akiyama left for MLB
Plenty of players were drafted in the last decade. Of the position players take. since 2014, only Shuta Tonosaki and Sosuke Genda are ichi-gun regulars where it's possible Yuto Koga is a starting catcher.
Ryusei Sato may be a solid hitter, but not enough to be a star. Others like Brandon Tysinger, Gakuto Wakabayashi, Shohei Suzuki and possibly Manaya Nishikawa have fizzled out not living up to their potential.
The hitting coaches have barely changed in this timeframe aside from Yosuke Hiraishi being an addition.
On the aging side, Takeya Nakamura and Takumi Kuriyama are both way past their primes and the former is only staying around with the goal of reaching 500 career HRs.
What's even more sad is Junichiro Kishi is tied for HRs with Jesus Aguilar having two up to this point, an outfielder not built to play every day.
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Kazuo Matsui has no excuses
Matsui came back to the Lions organization in 2018 as a part time player/coach. He was later the farm manager from 2019-2021, meaning he saw several of these players like Nishikawa through the organization in their developmental phases.
He was the head (bench) coach for the Lions in 2022 as a transition year for 2023.
Currently, there's no progress on offense and it ends up being his responsibility when one unit is rather poor. Last year, his fixation on playing Minato Aoyama hurt him and the bullpen to cost the team games.
However, with this poor showing by players, the culture of losing could trickle down long term. The worst case scenario happened last week, when Hotaka Yamakawa hit two grand slams in one game off the Lions.
The reputation at Seibu has been negative with several players leaving once they hit free agency. It goes beyond wages, more to do with culture and conditions.
There's a reason why Kona Takahashi wants to go to MLB someday, part of it likely wanting to leave the Lions and not be stuck for awhile. For those tracking, he doesn't have domestic FA rights until after the 2025 season.
Starting pitching is living up to the hype with Kaima Taira, Tatsuya Imai and even Natsuki Takeuchi looking good. However, this won't mean much when the team can't hit.
If this offensive trend continues, heads need to be rolling and it's very fireable how they could even be worse than last season, where Yamakawa also missed most of the games.
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