10/10 letter is deus ex machina that forces crotchety manager to have to keep Honda even though he doesn't want to. I'm gonna say either untimely demotion/promotion and instatement of Onuki as temporary manager, or explicit message to not cut Honda.
This time the manager was correct. Honda's steal of 2nd was wrong, the ball beat him to the bag but the tagger dropped it. There wasn't any genius in that move, just luck.