The Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series after a hard fought battle against the Toronto Blue Jays. The best player on the series was surprisingly not Shohei Ohtani, but his fellow Japanese Yoshinobu Yamamoto. After winning the MVP of the series, the pitcher credited one very important person for his success.
Yamamoto pointed to Osamu Yada, known as Yada Sensei, as the man behind what Yamamoto was able to do. “He’s the person who built me,” Yamamoto said. Those are big words of affirmation from arguably MLB‘s best pitcher.
According to Jeff Passan of ESPN, Yada is “a biomechanist first and foremost, obsessive about how the body’s movement patterns apply force to a baseball. Beyond that, he is a philosophical guru, a bridge between the ocean-wide chasm that separates Japanese baseball, where Yamamoto formed his foundation, and American baseball, where he erected his masterwork upon it.”
Yada Sensei is a unique person
Yamamoto says to “just think of me as a loudmouth grandpa,” but to Yamamoto, he is just way bigger than a loudmouth grandpa. Yada said that Yamamoto was like popular anime character Goku, from Dragon Ball Z. This meaning that what he did in the World Series is pretty much indistinguishable. Some might say Ohtani is as well, but in other approaches.
On his teachings, Yada said, “And what I’ve been able to do is teach Yoshinobu about things that occur in the natural world. And because the general philosophies and the things that are accepted are so different when you look at it from a sporting sense, it seems like something that’s outrageous.” Yada surely seems like an outside-of-the-box thinker even if he doesn’t think himself as that.
Yada Sensei might be able to see the future
Yada and Yamamoto met in Osaka in 2017. He said Yamamoto is talented and commited to a very disciplined work ethic, but his greatest quality is his patience. Apparently as well, Yada might be able to predict the future.”Yoshinobu will say things like, ‘I want to be able to do this,'” Yada said. “And I’ll tell him, ‘OK, in two years you’ll be able to do that.’ And then in two years he is actually able to do that.“ For the Blue Jays and the rest of the MLB, they’d rather see Yamamoto not learn any more things.
Also, Yada’s method is very different than what United States Minor Leagues use. “It’s easy to use one muscle at 100% output,“ Yada said, “but what Yoshinobu is trying to do is to use 600 different muscles at 10% output. You can’t think about 600 things at once and throw. So it’s learning to prioritize which parts of the movement are the most important.” It wouldn’t be surprising if in the near future other coaches start using Yada’s methods.