Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s training cycle focuses on MLB stretch runs

TEMPE, Ariz. – The coming season will be demanding, perhaps the most demanding of Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s career.

Next month the World Baseball Classic. Another six-month MLB regular season. And if the Dodgers reach the heights they expect to reach, three or four more postseason series will follow.

All this after a playoff run that saw Yamamoto throw complete games in consecutive starts, pitching the final 2 ⅔ innings of Game 7 of the World Series a day after starting Game 6.

As Yamamoto answered questions Saturday about the 1⅔ innings he pitched against the Angels in the Dodgers Cactus League opener, a slim figure in a tracksuit stood on the other side of the visiting Tempe Diablo Stadium clubhouse to explain why the right-hander would stay healthy for the next eight months.

“There is no person without worries,” Osamu Yada said in Japanese. “But I think we’re at a point now where we have a little more peace of mind than worry.”

Yada has trained Yamamoto since he was a teenager with the Orix Buffaloes of the Japanese league, transforming him from a novice who needed ten days between pitching appearances to a workhorse capable of pitching on consecutive days. He never instructed Yamamoto to lift weights, instead prescribing an unorthodox training routine that included handstands, swingarms and javelin throwing.

As grueling as the upcoming season may be, Yada said, Yamamoto’s winter was even more exhausting. Yamamoto trained six times a week, six hours at a time, under Yada’s supervision.

“In December and January,” Yada said, “he pushes himself to the point of complete exhaustion.”

The training program is not designed so that Yamamoto can have a turn in the rotation every six or seven days. The regime is structured in such a way that Yamamoto can peak in the second half of the season.

As for Yamamoto’s noticeable increase in muscle mass, Yada said it happened naturally.

“He really hasn’t done anything to get bigger,” Yada said.

The trainer joked that Yamamoto was like the dominant monkey on a mountain.

“Right after he becomes the boss, he gets bigger,” Yada said, chuckling.

Yamamoto earned boss status last season, entering the offseason as World Series MVP. Shohei Ohtani crowned him the best pitcher in the world, and manager Dave Roberts has mentioned him several times as a candidate for the Cy Young Award.

But the last Dodgers pitcher to have a similar postseason is the ultimate cautionary tale.

Before there was Yamamoto, there was Orel Hershiser. Now 67 years old, Hershiser was the hero of the 1988 World Series. The entire postseason then consisted of just two rounds, but Hershiser made five starts, the last three of which were complete games. He also closed out a game in the National League Championship Series.

Hershiser’s legacy is not only one of extraordinary performance, but also of its cost. Two years after Hershiser was the World Series MVP, he blew out his shoulder.

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However, Roberts has decided not to worry too much about Yamamoto’s health. No matter what the Dodgers said, Yamamoto was determined to represent Japan in the World Baseball Classic.

The previous two years give Roberts confidence that Yamamoto won’t extend himself to where he would jeopardize his health, even if Yamamoto missed three months in 2024 with shoulder problems.

“It’s been from the day we signed him how intentional he is about his work and his body care,” Roberts said.

Furthermore, Roberts said, “There is no science on early staging.”

Yamamoto reached 90.9 mph with his fastball against the Angels, striking out two batters in a 1-2-3 first inning. But he cooled off during a six-run second inning for the Dodgers, and a dropped fly ball by left fielder Teoscar Hernandez contributed to him giving up two runs (one earned) in the bottom half of the frame.

Yamamoto said he would make one more appearance in the Cactus League before joining the Japanese national team training camp in Osaka. He is expected to start his country’s WBC opener against Taiwan on March 6.

Yada is comfortable with where Yamamoto is and thinks he can more or less predict how Yamamoto will feel at different points in the season. Yada likened Yamamoto’s off-season work to a seed being planted in the ground.

“In the spring the plant germinates, in the summer the flowers bloom and in the fall the fruits appear,” says Yada. “The same thing happens here. After a number of years you start to understand how the cycle unfolds throughout the year.”

Yada pointed to the end of summer.

“Please look forward to it,” he said with a polite bow.

Yamamoto should then reach a peak.