This story was excerpted from Sonja Chen’s Dodgers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
Tucked behind the baseball gear and personal effects in Mookie Betts' locker at Camelback Ranch are some unusual new training implements: a few mini javelins.
Heading into his 13th big league season, Betts has adopted a routine that he hopes will help keep him healthy and productive for the foreseeable future. For the past couple of weeks, before going through his usual morning workouts, Betts has headed to a private backfield to throw javelins, a practice he picked up from Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
"It's been great. My shoulder feels great," Betts said. "We'll see how it goes in the long term."
Javelin throwing may be its own sport, but as a training activity, it can benefit athletes in other sports. It takes a full-body effort to throw a javelin, requiring a strong lower-body foundation to avoid putting too much strain on the upper body. The components of the throw must be synced to ensure power and accuracy.
In that sense, the motion has a lot in common with a pitcher's delivery, as evidenced in Yamamoto's mechanics. In the short time Betts has been using the javelins, he's noticed a difference in how the ball carries across the diamond when he throws during fielding drills. But he's more interested in the practice as a full-body exercise rather than targeting a specific part of his game.
"I think it's kind of like an all-in-one tool," Betts said. "But if you don't know what you're doing, you could probably hurt yourself. So luckily, I got the best teacher in 'sensei' to help me."
That would be Osamu Yada, also known as "Yada-sensei" among the Dodgers. Yada is Yamamoto's longtime trainer, who developed a unique training regimen that eschews traditional weight training in favor of flexibility and mobility workouts.
Two years ago, when Yamamoto was new to the Dodgers, his routine only increased the intrigue surrounding him during his first Spring Training. He came stateside after a decorated career in Nippon Professional Baseball, winning the Eiji Sawamura Award (the NPB equivalent of the Cy Young) and the Pacific League MVP award three consecutive years. His durability, as a result of how he prepares his body, was notable in its own right.
There are no true one-size-fits-all routines in fitness, so following Yamamoto's training regimen would not necessarily have the same effect for another player. But Betts has a slight frame, like Yamamoto, and he thought emulating parts of Yamamoto's routine could be beneficial. Betts went to Yada "pretty much immediately" two years ago to learn a stretching program that he still does. But he didn't pick up a javelin until this year.
It was Yamamoto's incredible performance during the World Series, when he closed out Game 7 in Toronto one day after throwing six innings on 96 pitches, that inspired Betts to take another step forward in his training with Yada.
"He went back to back in the World Series on zero days' rest," Betts said. "No surgeries this offseason, nothing. There's no real injury history. I mean, [it's] something that there's no real downside."
Coming off the worst offensive season of his career, when he weathered adversity on and off the field, Betts has something to prove as his team bids for a three-peat. He spent the offseason working to get back to what he does best with his swing, a process that helped him learn about himself.
While Betts emphasized getting back to basics, he's willing to embrace unorthodox training methods -- like throwing javelins -- to accomplish that.
"I'm looking to get better in every form of the game," he said. "This is one of them."