Analytics in the MLB: Interview with Taira Uematsu, an assistant coach for the San Francisco Giants

Taira Uematsu was born and raised in Tateyama City near Tokyo, Japan, playing baseball through high school, before moving the US to study sports medicine. He started as an intern for the Giants, then became the bullpen catcher for the San Francisco Giants, before being promoted to an assistant coach for the organization, becoming the first ever Japanese born coach in the MLB. I sat down with him to talk about his journey with the Giants as well as his personal opinion regarding the use of analytics in baseball and in sports as a whole.

TA: How did you first get involved with baseball?

TU: My dad played baseball all the way through college. He was a really good player. At one point he was coaching a little league team and one day he took me to a practice and I was very interested, and eventually joined the team and I continued to play baseball through high school.

TA: How did you get involved in the Giants organization?

TU: So after high school in Japan I came to the United States, specifically Santa Barbara, and I began to study sports medicine because I thought that it would be awesome to potentially work in a job in baseball. I went to Southern Illinois University and began working as a trainer, wrapping ice packs, treating injuries, things of that nature, but one day, I was watching batting practice, and I noticed that the BP thrower was pretty awful. So I walked up to the assistant coach and asked if I could help throw BP because I thought that I could do a better job. He didn’t believe me, but a couple days later the head coach, Dan Callahan, asked me a few questions and played catch with me. He noticed that I had a very good 4-seam fastball, and asked me to throw batting practice the next day. It went perfectly, as all the players liked it and asked me to catch bullpens during games. In my senior year, I began to look for some internships as a trainer. I had experienced a one week internship with the Twins the year prior, but was looking for a longer opportunity. I then got an offer to be an unpaid intern for the Chicago White Sox. At first I thought that this was fine for me, as I was not a confident trainer and I could just rely on my parents to help me out over the summer and help pay for my meals. But when I talked with Dan Callahan, he told me not to accept the offer and wait a few days. Eventually Callahan found a job opportunity as a bullpen catcher for the San Francisco Giants Triple A team in Fresno, California. I made the decision to join and I’ve been with the Giants ever since.

TA: During your time as a bullpen catcher, have you noticed analytics making any changes to players’ baseball mechanics or player development in any way?

TU: I don’t think analytics had that much involvement with mechanics, but overall, how we play the game, such as looking at pitcher matchups (lefty vs righty, or which batters succeed against certain pitchers), identifying when and how to deploy a shift, or creating our batting lineups, are mostly influenced by analytics. But mechanically, analytics don’t make too much of an impact. There are certain instances where pitching coaches might use analytics to help pitchers to utilize their different pitches, but overall, I think analytics are used more on a decision making level rather than mechanics.

TA: On a day to day basis, how often do you see players or coaches interacting or using analytics?

TU: It depends on what type of coach. Pitching and hitting coaches use analytics every single day to help their players.

TA: For me, there needs to be a balance between the use of analytics and having traditional baseball knowledge when it comes to judging player or team performances. What is your opinion on how analytics should be used in comparison to more traditional methods of performance assessment?

TU: I mean, I think we should use analytics as much as we can, but as you said, there needs to be a balance between analytics and traditional baseball feelings, and if you mix that I think it can be very powerful. We should of course apply analytics as they give us good insight about player/team performance, but we also have to utilize traditional baseball knowledge, and I think that if a team leans to heavy to one side, more often than not, they will become an unsuccessful team. Balance is key.

TA: There is a belief among many fans that analytics are ruining the game, what is your stance on that?

TU: For me, I think that analytics are improving the game, and moving it in a positive direction. Sometimes, however, there are moments where I feel that the game would be more entertaining if analytics wasn’t as heavily relied on, such as letting pitchers go the full nine innings or letting them go through the order three times. To me it’s better to have some people who are well versed in baseball as opposed to an analyst who might know very little about baseball, because as we talked about, there needs to be a balance between analytics and baseball knowledge. Gabe Kapler, for example, was a former player, and knows baseball really well, but still is able to balance the use of analytics as well. However, overall, I still feel that analytics is driving baseball in a positive direction.

TA: What do you think about the Moneyball story? Do you think some of the ideas regarding analytics in the story have a positive impact on baseball as a whole?

TU: Actually, for the President of Operations for the Giants, Farhan Zaidi, Moneyball is what got him involved in baseball in the first place. He read the book a while back, and really enjoyed it and wanted to pursue a career in the field of baseball and analytics. He actually ended up working for Billy Bean, the main character in Moneyball, before becoming an assistant GM with the Dodgers and then eventually joining the Giants organization. So this Giants organization uses this Moneyball story, and the ideas in it to help our team. I mean we had a very successful year last year of course, with 107 wins, and it involved a mixture of both analytics and baseball skills and I think some of that can be attributed to Moneyball. Overall, I think that Moneyball has made very impactful contributions to baseball.

TA: How much emphasis are you planning to put on analytics as you begin your coaching career?

TU: As much as I can, really. I’m not an expert in analytics and I’m still in the process of learning analytics and trying to understand it, but once I start getting the hang of it, I want to apply it as much as I can.

TA: Do you have any advice for people trying to get a job in baseball?

TU: For a guy like me, I never had a professional career as a player, but still I became a major league coach. So I would advise that if you truly love the game, there are many ways to get involved outside of being a player. For me, reaching out to people was really helpful, it was how I got this job in the first place. So try and reach out as much as possible and opportunities will come.

TA: Thank you so much for spending time to talk with me! Good luck in your coaching career!

For more information about Taira’s fascinating story, read here: https://theathletic.com/3026090/2021/12/21/mr-omnipresent-how-giants-coach-taira-uematsu-pursued-a-dream-and-made-history/#.