Three veteran Saitama Seibu Lions players announced their retirement this month. Catcher Masatoshi Okada, Outfielder Yuji Kaneko and pitcher Tatsushi Masuda all finish their careers to end this season.
Kaneko and Okada already had their retirement games while Masuda will have his on September 28.
In reality, this is reflective of how bad the Lions have utilized free agency.
The Lions reputation for having players walk elsewhere has been around since free agency existed in the 90s and the main core from the Golden Era was broken up. Kimiyasu Kudo left for the Daiei Hawks after the 1994 season and it only continues from there to Hiromichi Ishige to a trading of Koji Akiyama.
Since 1994, 21 starting players have left in free agency to both NPB teams and MLB teams (Hiroyuki Nakajima, Shogo Akiyama) and the culture has been about how Seibu Holdings, the parent company has cheapened out. There's maybe even sketchy treatment of players compared to other teams.
But here, the Lions have also failed when it comes to keeping players who reach seven years of service time to enter free agency.
Tatsushi Masuda stayed with the Lions after the 2020 season and it felt historic they kept a player. He only has a closing season in 2022 and lost his high leverage roles in 3 of the last 4 years. Masuda's 2023 was nearly unwatchable.
Yuji Kaneko was retained for his speed, yet his regression since 2020 is clear as day. In the last five seasons, he's only appeared in at least 100 games once and never reached at least 20 stolen bases since 2019, the one strength he once had.
Kaneko has been a part time player since 2022.
Masatoshi Okada was kept around as a backup catcher, but his health prevented him from playing for majority of the last three seasons. To be fair, he was mostly a pinch bunter and not necessarily a waste of money with his cost being low. However, his peak seasons were before 2020.
Even Ken Togame, who was retained didn't have a significant role once the Lions kept him from walking in free agency. Today, he works as a scout for the Lions front office.
Most recently, Shuta Tonosaki, Sosuke Genda and Katsunori Hirai were retained after reaching free agency, yet their prime could be fading sooner than expected.
Hirai has barely appeared in the bullpen this season while Tonosaki isn't a threat in the lineup. Genda has been the only constant and stayed around for his defense, now the captain.
For the Lions, they need to show they care about treating their good players well and not letting them walk so easily in free agency. Hideto Asamura and Tomoya Mori left at the first moment they could, much like Yasuyuki Kataoka and Hotaka Yamakawa.
Is there hope? Seibu Holdings needs to look in the mirror. While it's nice they renovated Belluna Dome and added a practice facility with much needed dorm upgrades in response to player feedback, the cheapness of free agents leaving just doesn't escape the perception.
In the past, the Lions were able to reload and still compete. However, this has finally caught up to them as the offense is historically bad with poor development/drafting.
To their credit, they're not overplaying old time veterans Takumi Kuriyama and Takeya Nakamura. The next generation has all but failed as shown by Kenton Watanabe being a bust. Takuya Hiruma could join him in this club at this pace.
Yet still, the Lions have no offensive foundational players going forward. Only Ryusei Sato can make reasonable contact.
Scouting has only been good from a pitching standpoint since 2020.
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