Dai Dai Otaka brings a fresh approach to his role as Chicago Cubs minor-league infield coordinator: ‘Make the extraordinary ordinary’

LOS ANGELES — Dai Dai Otaka always thought he would become a lawyer.

He majored in political science, earning a bachelor’s degree from Yale while starting for the baseball team, appearing in 108 games and recording a career .975 fielding percentage as an infielder. Heading into his sophomore season, Otaka talked to some people who were lawyers to learn more about his future career.

“I always thought it was like a John Grisham-type thing,” Otaka said. “And it just wasn’t.”

Otaka realized his passion centered on coaching and infield defense. Three years after he finished his fifth-year graduate season at Johns Hopkins, the Cubs hired Otaka, 25, as their minor-league infield coordinator for the 2023 season.

“I’m very blessed with the opportunity and just trying to just learn as much as I can,” Otaka said. “So many people know way more than I do, and I’m just trying to pick their brains and understand where they’re coming from and what their thoughts are and try to implement some of my ideas.”

Otaka spent the previous two seasons as a development coach in the Houston Astros organization. During his first year, Otaka worked with players who were rehabbing, just drafted or on the development list at the Astros complex in West Palm Beach, Fla. His responsibilities expanded last season when he had opportunities to fill in for coaches at Houston’s various minor-league affiliates and even got to spend one week as part of Dusty Baker’s big-league staff.

Otaka came on the Cubs’ and vice president of player development Jared Banner’s radar more than a year ago through mutual contacts and social media. In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic caused his senior season at Yale to be canceled after only 10 games, Otaka used his Twitter account to highlight case studies. He pored through video of players and broke down different defensive plays or frequencies of specific plays and how that should be implemented from a training standpoint.

Otaka always has appreciated the analytical side. He took statistics classes in college and loves spreadsheets. His wife enjoys giving him a hard time about it, a smiling Otaka noted, because he often will open up Excel and search for correlations whenever he gets new data.

“Some teams like that, obviously trending toward a more analytical approach to anything that you do in an organization,” Otaka said.

Once the Cubs had an opening for the season, they reached out to the Astros to facilitate an interview. Banner described Otaka as a smart, dynamic young coach who connects well with people and demonstrates a willingness to learn and grow.

“Traditionally, we’ve been practicing defense a certain way as a whole in baseball for a long time,” Banner told the Tribune. “Dai Dai has some new, unconventional ways to teach, and I’m excited to try some of those things.”

The infield coordinator role blends instruction with implementation and innovation. During spring training, Otaka’s responsibilities center on preparing players for the season — planning each day’s infield drills, what early work entails and whether any individual work is needed. With the minor-league season underway, Otaka hops around the Cubs’ affiliates and checks in on what help might be needed, though he said his in-season approach could be tweaked as he continues to learn how he wants to approach the role.

Otaka’s main message: Make all the plays.

“One thing we’re trying to do is obviously make the routine routine but make the extraordinary ordinary, so if we can make and maximize those ranging plays a little bit more routine, then we’re getting to more balls and getting more outs, our outs above average or higher so we’re creating more value from the defensive side of things and preventing more runs,” Otaka said. “That’s the biggest goal, preventing runs, so I don’t really care how you do it, but let’s get more outs.”

How Otaka and the Cubs implement that approach requires accounting for players’ different levels of athleticism and range. Individualizing both the mental and physical side of defense is a focal point of Otaka’s teaching.

“The biggest thing we’re trying to go for, whether it’s their routine that they go through, is trying to individualize it as much as possible so that we’re getting the best out of that individual player instead of trying to blanket something and make them a one-trick pony,” Otaka said. “It’s trying to find the balance of even within mass ground balls — how do we individualize it for the player?”