On the 26th, the Rakuten Eagles announced the appointment of Shinya Tsuruoka as a coach.

Tsuruoka joined Nippon-Ham as an eighth-round draft pick in 2002. In his fourth year, 2006, he began forming a battery with Yu Darvish (now with the Padres), which increased his playing opportunities, and he won the Golden Glove Award in 2009. After moving to the Softbank Hawks as a free agent in the 2013 offseason and playing there for four years, he returned to Nippon-Ham in 2018 and spent another four years as an active player. From 2019, he served as a player-coach for the battery.