Yoshinobu Yamamoto set to defy past pitching wisdom with Dodgers

MLB

By Joel Sherman

GLENDALE, Ariz. — No player exemplifies modern baseball more than Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

When it comes to pitching, size has historically mattered. Sure a Pedro Martinez or Tim Lincecum would defy the big, powerfully built stereotypes. But the fact that you can tick off the under 6-foot club of starters who have had any kind of sustained MLB success mostly off the top of your head speaks to its rarity through the years. In the world of self-preservation, scouts know they will probably keep a job if the 6-5 hard-thrower fails. Thus, not many want to put their names on pitchers who see eye-to-eye with Tom Cruise.

Until recently, pitcher training was mainly one-size-fits-all, and to deviate — especially a large veer — meant near certain clubhouse ridicule and ostracization.

Having the highest-paid pitcher ever be someone who had never lifted his arm in a MLB game would have been as likely even 10 years ago as sailing around the world in an inner tube, especially if the pitcher’s history was to start once a week with a smaller baseball than used in MLB.

Yet here is Yamamoto, listed at 5-10 — probably generously. He eschews weight lifting, instead focusing on flexibility and prepping his body with a routine build around scaled-down soccer balls and javelins. When Yamamoto makes his next major league start, it will be his first.

And when he makes that start, Yamamoto will be beginning a contract that over the next 12 years is guaranteed for $325 million — or $1 million more than Gerrit Cole’s previous record.

“I had not thought about it all, probably because we are very much of the mindset that nothing is for sure, whether it is how big a player is or how they train,” Dodgers GM Brandon Gomes said. “We pride ourselves on being open to things, and part of that is what works for one person might not for the next. As an industry, we are recognizing that body types don’t necessarily mean everything. Plus, we can quantify things in a different way. And all the information we had from watching him made us feel confident about our bet that he will have success in the big leagues.”

The Dodgers were not alone in their willingness to make this financial gamble. The Mets were willing to pay the same 12 years at $325 million. The Yankees offered 10 years at $300 million.

In a clubhouse interview with The Post, Yamamoto said through an interpreter that the New York teams “communicated with me that they were really serious about having me on their team.” He said he was serious as well and said that location — it has been believed the West Coast was where he wanted to sign — was not an overwhelming factor. Instead, “I really got the impression that the Dodgers were very successful for a very long time. And just that the atmosphere with the organization was really good.”

So the Dodgers won a frenzied bidding war. The expectation when the offseason began was that Yamamoto would do well to push above $200 million. But this is where modernity really enters.

Organizations more than ever value prime years of a player. And Yamamoto is 25. And he was being monitored with the same pitch-tracking technology with the Orix Buffaloes as used in MLB. Thus, every team can see the velocity, shape and movement of each offering and compare it to MLBers with similar pitch profiles. It took some of the mystery out of wondering how the stuff would translate.

Since MLB pitchers now speak that data language, there has been little blowback as there would have been in the recent past by veterans upset that a pitcher untested in MLB received this deal. As Dodgers lefty James Paxton, a 10-year major leaguer, said, “It doesn’t bother me. He obviously paid his dues in Japan and showed what he was capable of. And it is about the numbers, the analytics and what your stuff looks like — and his stuff looks like a guy who is going to make what he is going to make.”

That is the initial impression in Dodgers camp as well. Even in Yamamoto’s first bullpen session on Friday, Dodgers officials were stoked by the easy 95-96 mph fastball. The depth on his off-speed offerings had them holding two hands apart to emphasize the drop. Plus, a breaking ball “that seems to speed up as it approaches the plate,” Gomes said. All with pinpoint location. All backed by what they already view in Gomes’ words as “incredible work ethic and dedication.”

It befits one of the most decorated pitchers in Japanese history, having (among other honors) won the country’s version of the Cy Young three times. Still, a pitcher who has twice won the MLB version of the Cy Young, Blake Snell, remains unemployed this offseason. As does postseason hero Jordan Montgomery. Because of age, ceiling and tracking data, teams pushed for Yamamoto — his lack of MLB blemishes becoming a positive, not a negative.

“You just don’t get access to 25-year-old Cy Young, this is unprecedented,” Gomes said. “And stuff and command is stuff and command — and [Yamamoto] has stuff and elite command.”