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Yesterday, the Los Angeles Angels achieved an unwanted milestone: their first 100-loss season. It marked a rather fitting end to the Arte Moreno era - one that saw the franchise wither from regular title contender to laughingstock that could not make the playoffs for the past eleven years despite having the likes of Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, and Shohei Ohtani.

Hope appears to be on the horizon, however. Earlier this month, Moreno announced that he had reached an agreement to sell the Angels to Stan Kroenke. The transaction will not be fully and officially consummated until the first quarter of next year, but fans are already optimistic about this change given Kroenke's track record of success - Arsenal, the Los Angeles Rams, the Denver Nuggets, and the Colorado Avalanche all have won titles under his ownership.

So, what has this to do with the Chunichi Dragons, you ask?

Like the Angels, the Dragons are a formerly successful franchise that has fallen on hard times. Very, very hard times. Just a single winning record and no playoff appearances from 2013 onwards? Four last-place finishes in the Central League, including three straight between 2021 and 2023? And as it currently stands, they might finish last yet again.

That stretch of futility has sadly led to the wastage of the talent and potential of the likes of Seiya Hosokawa, Shinnosuke Ogasawara, Yudai Ohno, Kenta Bright, and even foreigners like Dayan Viciedo, Raidel Martinez, and most recently Jason Vosler and Miguel Sano. It does not help that the coaching staff and front office have consistently failed to identify and develop quality prospects, and when they do, they then fail to build a strong supporting cast around said prospects.

There are a plethora of ways Chunichi can rejuvenate this franchise, but to me, one stands out for its radicality. It is one that has gotten me condemned multiple times, but it sadly may be the most effective given Chunichi's financial state:

Sell the Dragons to Toyota.

Think about it. Toyota may no longer be Japan's most valuable company, having been passed by SoftBank this June, but it is still very valuable and still leads in actual revenue. I mean, it has a literal city named after it. It has the money to own a baseball team, and it did attempt to buy the Dragons after they won the 1954 Japan Series.

Concerns over commercial impact prevented Toyota from doing so at the time, but now it has Nagoya Grampus and three(!) basketball clubs, among others. So what is stopping them now from trying with the Dragons again? Fear of failure?

I mean, they can look at how said teams have struggled to be successful, or how the New York Mets have largely underperformed since Steve Cohen took over in 2020. At the same time, however, NPB has three examples of franchises turning themselves around after a change in ownership - which Toyota can hopefully emulate.

The Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks? They would not be this dynastic juggernaut if Nankai did not sell the team to Daiei in 1988 in the first place. They were in a dire situation at the time of the sale, and would remain so in the first few years of the Daiei era. But then, in 1995, they hired Sadaharu Oh, and the rest is history.

The Saitama Seibu Lions? The Black Mist scandal killed their Nishitetsu era, and they languished under weird sponsorships and consecutive poor records before being saved by Seibu in 1978. They would remain bad for a while, but then Tatsuro Hirooka arrived in 1982, and the rest is history.

Finally, and most recently, the Yokohama DeNA BayStars? They were utterly terrible when TBS (no, not that TBS; we mean the Tokyo Broadcasting System) owned them from 2002 to 2011 and remained so in the first four years under DeNA. But then in 2016, Tomoko Namba took over as principal owner, and the rest is history.

I am confident that Toyota can eventually find the Dragons' version(s) of these figures should it choose to assume ownership. Right now, though, its focus must be on completely "changing the culture", as is sometimes said in North American pro sports. It will take some growing pains, and the team will remain bad for a few more years, but eventually, baseball in Nagoya shall see a new light.

But what do you think? Do the Dragons need Toyota to save them? And will Toyota be able to do so? Let me know in the comments below!

Ever since he became Ethiopia's Prime Minister in 2018, Abiy Ahmed has repeatedly emphasized that he wants the country to have a port on the Red Sea, even calling its current landlocked status "a geographic prison". After all, having access to global waters guarantees an ability to project power, even if only regional.

To that end, he has not shown an aversion to invading Eritrea if it means retaking the ports of Massawa and Assab. But let us go back in time and posit an alternate scenario that could prevent that.

It is the 2000s. Somalia is still crumbling. The central government has realized that its people, especially along the coast, have realized that piracy is the only way they can possibly survive. It needs to eradicate this potential sociopolitical blight, but it lacks the money and resources to do so.

Thus, Somalia offers to sell Somaliland to Ethiopia. Theoretically, it should benefit both parties: Ethiopia, with its growing economy, gains the port of Berbera, fulfilling its desire for access to the Red Sea. Meanwhile, Somalia gains the necessary funds to curb piracy and more legitimately develop its economy.

Would it have worked? Let me know in the comments!