Kind of a surprise was the announcement last week that Motonobu Tanishige was named the new manager of the Chunichi Dragons.

The veteran catcher turns 43 on Dec. 21 and has not yet retired from active play, so will be a playing manager.

The appointment of former manager Hiromitsu Ochiai as general manager also came pretty much out of the blue. Ochiai was dropped from the Chunichi field manager's chair in 2011 despite a winning record, supposedly because he was not as fan — and media — friendly as the organization would have liked.