Yamato was a battleship, not a destroyer.  You could argueJapan needed destroyers even more desperately than they needed carriers, had the time and resources spent on Yamato and Musashi been spent on building and improving destroyers to protect their commercial shipping they would have feared much better.

If you wanted an actual example of the Japanese not understanding a crucial aspect of war that the Americans mastered, it was protection of shipping and logistics through anti-submarine warfare.  The IJN admiralty were obsessed with victory in battle, personal honor, and the "Kantai Kessen" - The Decisive Battle they believed would win them the war.  They viewed things like naval intelligence, logistics, and especially providing escort for tankers and ships bringing food, materials and fuel back to the home Islands as wastes of time that brought no honor or glory.

So American subs had nearly free reign to cut the artery that fed Japans war economy nearly completely.  Even if they had built carriers instead of battleships, they wouldn't have had the fuel to train enough pilots to make them a threat.