Category Archives: Mental Game

Talent will not always take you the distance. If your head gets in the way it can be a huge obstacle to overcome. Take in some of these articles to help get your mind right for the next time you take the field.

Strike One

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Strike One is the most important pitch in baseball.

Strike one: the best pitch in baseball. Not a 95 MPH fastball. Not a curveball that drops off the table. Strike one!

Throwing strikes is the name of the game. No pitcher will argue against the benefit of getting ahead in the count by attacking the strike zone. And no coach would be upset if his pitching staff was constantly pitching ahead in the count. So, why is strike one and getting ahead in the count so important? It’s a shame you have to ask, but let’s break it down for you.

The Mentality of the Pitcher

Imagine you are pitching. Your standing on the mound in the second inning with one out and the score is 0-0. You get your sign from the catcher, begin your windup, and deliver the pitch for strike one. With the count 0-1 in your favor, your confidence increases and you have your pick of pitches to deliver next. Fastball, breaking ball, change-up – the choice is yours. You know you have the advantage, and your confidence in attacking the strike zone increases. You are in control, and you dictate the pace and flow of the at-bat.

Now, imagine that your first pitch was a ball. Count, 1-0. It’s only one pitch, but the typical pitcher becomes a little more tight and opts for his fastball the next pitch. After all, you throw your fastball with the most accuracy, and the last thing you want is for the count to go to 2-0 in the hitter’s favor. You know the hitter is looking fastball now, so you try to paint the corner and nibble with your next pitch. Whether you are aware of it or not, your confidence has decreased some and you are less likely to attack the strike zone with the same fervor as you would if the count was 0-1.

The Mentality of the Hitter

Count, 0-1. Most young hitters will begin thinking that they are already in the hole. In their mind, they are already losing the battle. This has a huge impact on their confidence. The hitter becomes a little more tight and tentative because he cannot be sure of what pitch is coming next. This is especially true if the guy on the mound can throw more than his fastball for strikes. Advantage: Pitcher.

Ball one. The batter knows that 1-0 is a hitter’s count and has a pretty good idea of what’s coming next. The hitter knows what the pitcher knows – he cannot fall behind 2-0, so he has to throw a strike here. Whether he knows for certain that the next pitch is a fastball or not is of no matter. What does matter is that his confidence is up a notch. And when it comes to success on the diamond, confidence plays a huge role. Advantage: Hitter.

The Statistics

We can speak of hypothetical situations all we want and the psychological effect on the pitcher and hitter, but let’s break down the actual statistics. No sport is as enamored with statistics as much as baseball. Baseball people count everything. Everything. So, it’s no surprise that there have been numerous studies on how well hitters perform with certain counts. One such study was documented in a two-part series by Craig Burley back in 2004. In his study, he dissected statistics from the 2003 MLB season. Burley found that just 7.3% of pitches thrown for first pitch strikes resulted in a base hit.

“That’s just shocking. 92.7% of the time, if you throw a strike to the opposing hitter, you get either a 0-1 count or an out,” said Burley.

In a game where success is measured by who fails the least, 92.7% is astronomical in terms of success rate. Think about it, a ballplayer is considered a good hitter if he succeeds just 3 out of 10 times. That’s only 30% of the time. That’s an F on any test I ever took in school, but considered an A on the baseball field. So, seeing a number like 92.7% should just jump out at you. And that’s at the Major League level. Imagine facing less-talented hitters at the college or high school level. If you are a youth pitcher and can grasp the magnitude of this stat, then you will be far ahead of your peers.

Burley further notes that once the count reaches 0-1, batters hit only .239 the rest of an at-bat. (The Major League average for batting average in 2003 was .268.) Still, an amazing advantage for the pitcher.

Coaching Pitchers

Though coaches are aware of the advantage of getting ahead in the count, they need to express and reinforce this important fact to their pitchers. Establishing the count in the pitcher’s favor gives him a huge advantage. Yes, hitters will still get base hits, but staying ahead in the count makes it significantly more difficult for the hitter to do so. The pitcher must make a commitment to throw strikes early in the count, trust his stuff, and know the statistics are on his side if he throws strike one.

“0-0 is the predominant count in baseball. The first strike is the soul of every pitcher’s success, and pitchers who don’t throw first-pitch strikes get killed. Consistently, even the most hittable pitchers in the majors give up base hits on fewer than 10% of their first-pitch strikes.” –Craig Burley

References:
Burley, Craig. “The Importance of Strike One (Part One).” The Hardball Times. Web.
Burley, Craig. “The Importance Of Strike One (and Two, and Three…), Part 2.” The Hardball Times. Web.

Art of Baseball Success

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The following is a guest post from Mark Brooks. Mark played two years at Alabama Southern Jr. College prior to playing at Bethune-Cookman University. He is the founder of Art of Baseball Productions and wants to share the little knowledge he has gained from the years he has played. Mark is mostly interested in the challenges the sport provides, and how the lessons learned on the field can be applied off it. You can learn more about Mark at www.artofbaseball.net.

Repeat after me, “Playing baseball is hard.” Allow that phrase to sit in your head for a second, and let it sink in. You and I both know this is true, but there is one thing that I can assure you of. In every single thing that we do in life, we will always get what we deserve. In the end, what you put in, you will receive in equal measure. For a lot of players, I see that either because of their natural talent, or willingness to work hard, they feel entitled to a successful career. The truth is, there are a handful of guys who are more talented than them, and another hand full of guys who work just as hard.

So what sets these players apart? Specifically, what gives one player an edge over another?

Is whatever it is “God given?” Or, is it within their control to develop and cultivate potential, to get the most out of what their capabilities are as baseball players?

I was guilty of this.

I felt entitled to receive playing time. To hit .400 and steal 40 bases. Hell, I worked hard. Why shouldn’t I deserve these accomplishments? But what I was giving in hard work, I was lacking in self-knowledge.

What if being talented or being an extraordinarily hard worker is simply not enough. Sure talent is essential, and sure hard work can make an average player better than the talent around him. But what if all the hard work and all the promising potential was simply a distraction? You might be wondering what I’m talking about, and before I tell you I ask that you keep a completely open mind.

What I’m talking about is knowing.

Knowing that you will succeed. Knowing that you are talented. Not believing. Not having faith. But knowing.

If I told you that you were breathing air, you would agree, right? But not because you have faith that you are breathing air, but because you can feel the air filling your lungs and you have been probably doing it for some years.

This knowing is what allows you to summon the courage to face terrifying pitchers with ungodly secondary pitches. This knowing is what gets the beat up and tired minor leaguer through a season after 150 plus games. He’s chasing his dream, and he either knows he’s going to make it one day, or die trying.

When Ted Williams hit .400, he knew no one could stop him. When Hank Aaron hit a home-run, he knew he could square up the pitch and drop the hammer. He was noted as saying that visualization was the most important part of his approach to hitting. He knew he could hit because he saw it in his head before every at-bat for over 20 years. Derek Jeter knew he was destined to play for the Yankees, and now he’s Captain.

5 Essential Tips

So how do we get to the point as baseball players where we know? Where no matter what happens, between the lines, or outside it, we know we can and will create a successful career.

Shed the belief of our entitlement to the sport. The fact is, baseball owes you nothing, and everything that you will ever achieve out of the sport, you will have to learn through understanding what your basic responsibilities are as an athlete.
Understand the concept of working smart as opposed to working hard. A lot of players expect good results simply from spending an extra few hours in the cage. The truth is, your probably better off spending less time actually practicing and more time understanding the importance of quality practice. Rod Carew would spend no less than 15 minutes in the cage, but he knew exactly what he wanted to accomplish in those 15 minutes.
Remember what it was like playing baseball as a kid. Except for the very “unfortunate” minority of you, you probably had very little pressure put on you by yourself and others to perform well. You just woke up everyday to play the game for the sake of playing. You had no attachments to results, and that was probably why you were so successful.
Play with a purpose. A lot of times a player’s main motivation is to be successful. I’m not saying that isn’t an effective medium for achievement, but it’s also important that players get specific with why they want to be successful as a baseball player. Is it to please someone else? Make their family proud? Or is it to make a positive difference in the world? Does the world become a better place by you becoming an MLB player?
Forget everything you learned and simply play. To make it to the next level, it’s a given that you will have to be an expert at the basic fundamentals of the sport. But we have to come to understand these movements at the level of instinct. The more we are able to correctly react, the quicker and more efficient we will be. And if you don’t know by now, baseball is all about consistency.

I feel that the sooner a player is able to implement these 5 principles, the better off a player will be in facing the enviable challenges that baseball brings. This is something that no baseball drill, coach, university, instructor, or teammate could ever give you. You have to give it yourself.

Don’t Believe Your Own Hype

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Today’s post comes from Sam Flamont and is syndicated from his site at www.samflamont.com. Sam played minor league baseball for 4 years, and has been giving private lessons for the last seven years. After being a part of the coaching staff at Central Michigan, he now the hitting coach at Davenport University, an NAIA school in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Sam has worked with a World Series champion, Little League players, and everyone in between. You can learn more about Sam and read his work at www.samflamont.com.

It may sound like a negative statement, but telling kids not to believe their own hype is probably the best advice I or anyone can give them when it comes to baseball. I like to call it “Greatness Syndrome” and it starts from an early age. It usually starts when the kid has proven to be one of the better players on his youth baseball team and usually comes from his or her own parents. I always tell kids your parents job is to tell you how great you are and my job is to tell you the truth. They tell their kids this because they love them and they want the best for them and I do not blame them for that, I just ask that parents take a more realistic approach to giving their kids compliments. Greatness Syndrome starts when parents begin telling their kids they are the best and they brag to others right in front of them. You may think this is helping but more often then not they start believing you and start getting a big head. When they start thinking what you are saying is true, which happens pretty fast since you are their parents and they trust you, the child begins to stop working hard. He will get an attitude with other players and may even stop listening to the coach, because what does he have to learn? He is already great. Kids who acquire this syndrome usually do not handle constructive criticism very well either. When someone tells them they are doing something wrong they simply blow it off or worse yet, tell them they are wrong. This part goes back to an earlier post when I asked how many times have you seen the best player become average and the average player become the best? It happens all the time and it happens because the kid who is the best begins to believe his own hype, where the kid is average keeps hearing his parents say, “Get ’em next time.” Well the average kid is sick of waiting until next time, he wants next time to be now, so he works and works as hard and as often as he can, while Kid Greatness is relaxing by a pool or playing video games. Pretty soon, little by little you start to see a change and what usually happens is around the time everyone hits puberty Kid Greatness is no longer, and the average kid is now the best. It is what happens next that surprises people. Kid Greatness usually quits or makes baseball a secondary sport pretending not to like it as much in order to save face. The average kid who is now being told how great he is plugs his ears. This kid is determined, and even if he hears it, he does not listen to the noise. Kid Average is now Kid Greatness plus he has a work ethic that he developed as a youngster. Remember this is youth baseball and chances are neither of these players play beyond high school, but the average kid with the work ethic is set up for success for the rest of his life, because to him failure is not an option, and he will do whatever it takes to get past any obstacle he encounters. Kid Greatness is set up to be lazy, and yes he can correct this behavior as he gets older it is much tougher to do so.

What I ask of you is to help keep your kid grounded, you can encourage him/her and you can tell them they did a great job, but you can also tell them their is always room for improvement and hard work has no substitute. I am not asking parents to be drill sergeants, I just do not like to see kids who could have been really good, fall off because they didn’t work hard enough due to the fact were told they are great.

Basic Goal Setting

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If you are reading this post I will assume you are on this website (and have been on numerous others) in search of baseball knowledge, of how to be a better ballplayer, and how to physically perform in the best capacity you are able. That should be the goal of any athlete that crosses the foul line to take the field. Speaking of goals, what are your goals? Can you get out a paper and pen and define them right now? Drawing a blank? Maybe you think goal setting is much to do about nothing. Maybe you don’t have the time to properly sit down and think about your goals. Many young ballplayers have no idea how to set goals for themselves so that they can reach their highest potential as a baseball player. So, let’s take a look at the how and why of goal setting.

First and foremost, goal setting will give you a clear purpose and direction. Having an objective will cause you to engage in activities that will move you closer to your goal or refrain from things that will hinder your journey to better performance. Your focus will narrow on the task at hand, and you will become more aware of what you truly want from the game. There is a very real difference to defining your specific goals and just “doing your best.” How do you know what your best is if you do not have something to measure it against?

Therefore, as a ballplayer, you need to set realistic and attainable goals. Goals that are too lofty or unreachable will set you up for frustration and loss of motivation. A goal that is too easily reached does not set you up for success either. A well-established goal should challenge the athlete to reach beyond his current limits to see how high he can reach. Furthermore, they should be adjustable. This goes along the same lines as before. A goal that has been established and then is easily reached, or reached sooner than expected, needs to be adjusted so that it continues to motivate and challenge you.

Once you’ve started to think about your goals, begin writing them down. Yes, literally pick up a pen and write them on a piece of paper. Even better, grab a large poster board and marker, and create a giant poster board that you can hang in your room so you can see it everyday. Goals that are written down are not casual goals. The writer (athlete) has thought them through, and he has committed himself to positive and specific behavior in order to achieve what has been written down. And when you need a reminder of what you are striving for, you have a resource you can refer back to by just looking at your piece of paper or poster board.

These written goals should be measurable. This seems simple enough, but stating that you want to be a better hitter does not give you anything to measure against. Instead, stating that you would like to have a batting average of .320 this season gives you a better way to measure your progress. Halfway through the season you’ll be able to see if you are on track, or if you need to adjust your goal higher or lower based on how realistic it is. Can you see how we are coming full circle using our other concepts of goal setting?

These simple methods of goal setting will serve to help you when you are just beginning. Remember, write them down and hold yourself accountable to them. Imagine the ballplayer you can be if you set the tone of success now. And when you achieve success and hit your goals, take out a fresh piece of paper and create for yourself a new set of goals that will take you even further.