TheYomiuri Giants are a professionalbaseball team based inBunkyo,Tokyo,Japan. The Giants are members of theCentral League (CL) inNippon Professional Baseball (NPB). In baseball, thehead coach of a team is called themanager, or more formally, the field manager. The duties of the team manager include team strategy and leadership on and off the field.[1][2] The team has employed twelve different managers since the formation of aprofessional baseball league in Japan. The current Giants manager isTatsunori Hara.[3]
In 1934, an All-Japan team was formed to play sixteen games against aMajor League Baseball All-Star team in Japan. After seeing the enthusiastic fan response to these games,Yomiuri Shimbun-ownerMatsutarō Shōriki decided to keep much of the Japanese team intact to form the Great Japan Tokyo Baseball Club in December of that same year. This team spent much of the next year in the United States playing variousMinor League and amateur teams.[4] During this time, the team's managers wereJapanese Baseball Hall of FamerDaisuke Miyake andYoshio Asanuma.[5] Encouraged by the success of Shōriki's team, which had quickly changed their name to the Giants, other Japanese teams were formed andJapanese Baseball League, Japan's first professional baseball league, was established in 1936.[6]
The Giants dominated the Japanese Baseball League.[4] The team won nine championships in sixteen seasons under five different managers.Sadayoshi Fujimoto, the team's first manager, held the position for ten seasons and has the highestwinning percentage of any Giants manager.[3]Hideo Fujimoto was aplayer-manager from 1944 to mid-1946, however the 1945 season was cancelled because ofWorld War II.[3][4]
Since the NPB was formed in 1950, the Giants have had eight different managers. Starting with the NPB's inaugural season,Shigeru Mizuhara managed the team for eleven seasons, earning the team its first fourJapan Series titles. Mizuhara's total winning percentage was .638, the highest of any manager in the NPB-era. Following Mizuhara,Tetsuharu Kawakami began a 14-year managerial tenure in 1960, the longest in franchise history. Under Kawakami, the team won eleven more Japan Series titles, including nine consecutive titles from1965 to1973. Kawakami won 1,066 games as the Giants' manager, the most in franchise history.[3]
| # | A running total of the number of Giants managers. Any manager who has two or more separate terms is only counted once. |
|---|---|
| GM | Number of regular season games managed; may not equal sum of wins and losses due to tie games |
| W | Number of regular season wins in games managed |
| L | Number of regular season losses in games managed |
| T | Number of regular season ties in games managed |
| Win% | Winning percentage: number of wins divided by number of games managed that did not result in a tie |
| PA | Postseason appearances: number of years this manager has led the franchise to the postseason |
| PW | Postseason wins: number of wins this manager has accrued in the postseasonA |
| PL | Postseason losses: number of losses this manager has accrued in the postseasonB |
| PT | Postseason ties: number of ties this manager has accrued in the postseason |
| LC | League Championships: number of League Championships, or pennants, achieved by the managerC |
| JS | Japan Series: number of Japan Series won by the manager |
| † | Elected to theJapanese Baseball Hall of Fame |

Statistics current through the2022 season
| # | Image | Manager | Seasons | GM | W | L | T | Win% | PA | PW | PL | PT | LC | JS | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sadayoshi Fujimoto† | 1936–1942 | 604 | 422 | 168 | 14 | .715 | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 2 | Haruyasu Nakajima† | 1943 | 84 | 54 | 27 | 3 | .667 | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 3 | Hideo Fujimoto† | 1944–1946 | 60 | 34 | 23 | 3 | .596 | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| — | Haruyasu Nakajima† | 1946–1947 | 171 | 96 | 74 | 1 | .565 | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 4 | Osamu Mihara† | 1947–1949 | 302 | 177 | 118 | 7 | .600 | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 5 | Shigeru Mizuhara† | 1950–1960 | 1,409 | 881 | 499 | 29 | .638 | 8 | 22 | 24 | 2 | 8 | 4 | ||
| 6 | Tetsuharu Kawakami† | 1961–1974 | 1,866 | 1,066 | 739 | 61 | .591 | 11 | 44 | 18 | 0 | 11 | 11 | ||
| 7 | Shigeo Nagashima† | 1975–1980 | 780 | 387 | 338 | 55 | .534 | 2 | 4 | 8 | 0 | 2 | 0 | ||
| 8 | Motoshi Fujita† | 1981–1983 | 390 | 211 | 148 | 31 | .588 | 2 | 7 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 1 | ||
| 9 | Sadaharu Oh† | 1984–1988 | 650 | 347 | 264 | 39 | .568 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ||
| — | Motoshi Fujita† | 1989–1992 | 520 | 305 | 213 | 2 | .589 | 2 | 4 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 1 | ||
| — | Shigeo Nagashima† | 1993–2001 | 1,202 | 647 | 551 | 4 | .540 | 3 | 9 | 8 | 0 | 3 | 2 | ||
| 10 | Tatsunori Hara | 2002–2003 | 280 | 157 | 118 | 5 | .571 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | ||
| 11 | Tsuneo Horiuchi† | 2004–2005 | 284 | 133 | 144 | 7 | .480 | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| — | Tatsunori Hara | 2006–2015 | 1441 | 795 | 595 | 51 | .572 | 9 | 32 | 33 | 1 | 6 | 2 | ||
| 12 | Yoshinobu Takahashi | 2016–2018 | 429 | 210 | 208 | 11 | .502 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| — | Tatsunori Hara | 2019–2023 | 549 | 273 | 243 | 33 | .529 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 13 | Shinnosuke Abe | 2024– | 143 | 77 | 59 | 7 | .566 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |