20 Mentality Questions
It’s shocking to me in the game of baseball, the number of players who have a poor mentality. I was incredibly fortunate to have multiple coaches from a young age preach and ingrain positive and productive thoughts into my brain about the game. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the norm. It’s something that has been either overlooked by many coaches or perhaps they didn’t know how to communicate these ideas.
I believe that baseball performance is heavily influenced by the mental aspect much more than the physical. I’ve watched physically talented ballplayers be pushed out of the game simply because of their mental approach or reactions to the game.
I’ll share a quick story and then let you answer the questions below for yourself. About a week ago while coaching a high school baseball game, an opposing hitter swung and missed at a first-pitch breaking ball. He responded by verbally saying “throw me a F@#king fastball”. As a pitching coach, calling each pitch for the game, I smiled and called 8 more consecutive breaking balls that resulted in 3 separate 3-pitch strikeouts. I knew before the game that this player was the team's most productive hitter, hitting for a high average, with the most extra-base hits on the team, and the most RBIs, oh, and he was their 3 hitter. Clearly hitting breaking balls wasn’t going well for him so much so that he verbalized it after swinging and missing at the first one he saw. I was shocked to hear him say that simply because for all I knew he had just been out front on a first-pitch breaking ball; he could have just made a mistake and sat back on the next one, and I wouldn't have thought much about sticking with one pitch for the remainder of his at-bats.
This player went on to throw a fit after each strikeout, like a toddler he whined and complained that he didn’t get the pitch he wanted and how stupid everything is and blah blah blah. I was surprised to see that this player's coach didn't say a word to him, he just let him talk. If I were coaching him, my message would have been clear. “Shut your mouth, not another word from you is spoken out loud for today. You caused the amount of breaking balls being thrown to you because you thought it would be a good idea to tell the other team to throw you a fastball, and then refused to make an adjustment 9 times in a row.” More importantly, what this player doesn’t understand is that regardless of how good your stats may be, no college coach would overlook his mentality during the game. For a player like that, high school baseball is as far as he’s making it unless there's drastic change. Unfortunately, this player feels more common than ever and has placed extra emphasis on myself to preach about mentality.
Offensive Mentality:
- After I get out, how long am I upset for?
- After I hit a home run, how long am I happy for? Think # of innings.
- If I go 0-4 but my team wins, was it a good day?
- If I go 4-4 but my team loses, was it a good day?
- Umpire calls strike 1, the ball is clearly off the plate, how do I react?
- After I strike out, how do I act?
- After I make an error on the field, do you want the next ball to be hit to you?
- When I’m having a bad game, do you like when coaches or players talk to you? Yes or No and Why.
- You hit a soft grounder to the shortstop, how hard should I run to 1st?
- How would your teammates describe you?
Pitching Mentality:
- When a hitter steps in the box, what is my mentality/goal?
- Which is better - 1 pitch and the batter grounds out or 3 pitches and the batter strikes out?
- When I throw a strike but the umpire calls it a ball - how should I react and why?
- When I give up a hit - how do I react?
- When I walk a batter - how do I react?
- When I strike out a batter - how do I react?
- When an infielder makes an error while you’re pitching - how do I react?
- Depending on if you’re facing the best hitter or the worst hitter - should you change anything?
- Best pitch in baseball?
- It’s a 3-2 count on the hitter and the bases are loaded - can you throw a strike to get the guy out?
references:
OpenAI's DALL-E. "Article Graphic." Generated [March 15th, 2024].