Tadahito Iguchi spent 21 years playing pro baseball, and one thing the second-year Lotte Marines manager is not looking for is a quick fix for his struggling Pacific League club.

"When we finished last two years ago, I considered what might be done to build a team that is an established winner five and 10 years down the road," Iguchi said in a recent interview with Kyodo News.

(Tadahito Iguchi pictured in January 2019)

One part of his solution was to commit to playing some guys every day.

"(In 2017) I didn't feel we had a single player who was a reliable piece to the puzzle," said Iguchi, who became the first former Japanese major leaguer to manage in Nippon Professional Baseball.

"So last year I was able to have four guys, (first baseman Seiya) Inoue, (second baseman Shogo) Nakamura, (catcher Tatsuhiro) Tamura, and (shortstop Yudai) Fujioka, play every game, and they each took a step forward. They were given a chance to take those positions for themselves and they owned them."

"That was about half of our positions. This year, I want to address the other half, then we'll have a good idea of where we are and what step we need to take next."

"That (experiment) had high points and low points. Sometimes I kept playing a guy longer than I should have and that cost us wins, but in the long run, I think even in those times the experience was valuable to the individuals."

After losing 87 games and finishing five games out of fifth place in 2017, Iguchi's final season as a player with the club, the Marines barely avoided a last-place finish in his 2018 managing debut. The skipper now hopes a year of experience will help him iron out some of the difficulties he had with pitching changes.

"As a position player, I didn't always grasp the nuances of the pitching side," he said. "I relied heavily on my pitching coaches, and will do so again this year as I keep learning from them. The communication there is the key."

"The decision to manage was not easy, but I'd established good communication with the players while I was their teammate, so I thought that side of things would make the transition easier."

Another factor was not wanting to get away from the action.

"When I came back from America in 2009, even after just four years, I felt there were huge gaps in my knowledge about the game here," he said. "I thought that if I got away from the front lines again, that would be another hurdle. I know what our players are capable of now, and I didn't want to have to relearn that later."

(File photo taken in October 2005 shows Iguchi hitting a single for the Chicago White Sox in Game 2 of the World Series against the Houston Astros at U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago.)

After his baptism by fire, and that of the four guys he threw into the lineup every day, Iguchi said one of his next moves is to foster more individual creativity among the young players.

"Japanese coaches look for themselves in the players (and instruct them as they would have instructed themselves). I think that's part of the difference between Japan and America," he said.

"In America, if a player is good at something, the attitude is 'Shall we work on it and make it even better and better still?' In Japan, we'll look for those things you can't do and hammer on them in order to eliminate negatives. It seems there's not a lot of room for individual will or desire in Japan."

"So, this year, we're not going to go overboard teaching our young players. It's not that we won't teach them, but rather we're not going to tinker with how they play too much on an individual level."

The dynamic between individual and team is, as Ichiro Suzuki noted in his retirement press conference, at the core of baseball's appeal. But with the Marines, Iguchi said, that dynamic is even more complicated by a tremendous rapport Lotte players share.

"It seems like everyone here is on the same wavelength," Iguchi said.

"Because of that, we have team ups and downs. There are times when everybody is up and times when everybody is down. So our performance has these huge swings. It's like a special connection and empathy between them and it drives that, so that they sometimes get into a group funk. It's really weird."

"I always think that if I substitute one guy who's not doing well that we can minimize those highs and lows, but we're basically a streaky team. We go on winning streaks but can't seem to avoid losing streaks. Then we'll stage an upset and all of a sudden we're on a win streak."

While that element of the Marines' equation is generally hidden from view, the mutual admiration between players and supporters is a key part of the team's brand. When the Marines win at home, the players do more than just take a bow for the fans, but they join the fans in a group-cheering frenzy.

"They give us amazing support," Iguchi said. "Our fan base is really knowledgeable, so when we make a good play we get an amazing reaction from them, and when we screw up, they'll even boo their own players. But that is an encouragement to us, more than if they just blindly cheer everything."

"This year, we made the field smaller (by adding many seats closer to the playing area), so the fans are going to be even closer. I think it's going to be even more fun."