Kimiyasu Kudo appointed as manager of Chunichi; rebuilding entrusted to "winning contractor" - professional baseball

It was announced on the 8th that Kimiyasu Kudo (63), who led Softbank until 2021, will be appointed as the new manager of Chunichi Professional Baseball. He has led the team to three Pacific League championships and five Japanese championships in seven years as a manager, and this will be his first return to the field in six years. Chunichi's coach Kazuki Inoue will retire at the end of this season. Aiming to rebuild the team, they approached Kudo, who had never played for a team, to take over.

[Special feature] Kimiyasu Kudo

Kudo is from Aichi Prefecture, where Chunichi is based, and joined Seibu in 1982 as the sixth pick in the draft from Nagoya Electric High School (now Aichi University of Technology). As a pitcher, he won the league championship 11 times and was number one in Japan eight times. Daiei (currently Softbank) and the Giants are number one in Japan three times in total. He retired from active duty in 2011 with a total of 224 wins, 142 losses, and 3 saves.

In 2015, he became the manager of Softbank, and from 2017 to 2020 he led them to Japan's No. 1 title for four consecutive years, with a total of 558 wins, 378 losses, and 42 draws. He was known as the ``Championship Contractor'' during his playing days, and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2016.

This season, which marks the 90th anniversary of the team's founding, Chunichi has performed poorly from the start, suffering five consecutive losses. It has been in a slump for a long time, falling to the bottom four times in the past 10 years.