Japanese have long dreamed that the nation’s passion for baseball and the impressive dedication that is part of the sport’s culture might someday turn the country into a true international powerhouse.

Sure, Japan won the first two World Baseball Classics, but the dream where everyone in the world thinks the baseball in Japan’s two major leagues is as rich and elite as in America’s remains remote.

The idea that analytics can help MLB teams on a budget compete by identifying undervalued attributes and purchasing winning talent cheaply, can also be applied to Japan’s dilemma by objectively learning where work needs to be done rather than simply practicing more and harder.

That was the not-so-hidden message last Monday when the Baseball Federation of Japan and the Japan Amateur Baseball Association hosted the finals of their first analytics competition for students.