The Emotional Player - Three Perspectives

By Matt Wehner

In any competitive sport - not just baseball, specifically, there is a level of being emotional that sports get out of us. The key is to use it for a positive in our sport and not a negative that can hurt our performance and our confidence in ourselves and our teammates.

Using emotion as a positive: This looks like recognizing that your passion can create a deep desire to compete and win and not giving in when challenges arise. It also looks like motivating your teammates to care about competing and not giving in when challenges arise. When you are frustrated, angry, tired, stubborn, etc. we always have the opportunity to turn that negative emotion into a chance to rally for your team and work even harder to compete and win. Competitiveness=success, winning does not equal success. We want to strive to be a great competitor that gives our 100% effort, humbly respecting that we do not control the outcome of the game, only our effort level.

It is really easy to identify positive emotion in sport as the majority of sports viewers can recognize when a player is helping their team with their positive emotion. Let’s focus on looking at the negative behaviors we see in players as this seems to be something not everybody can adequately “call out” as negatively affecting a player’s development and their team.

Examples of negative emotional behaviors for players and why:

• Shrugging your shoulders on the mound, shaking your head and looking down – This communicates to your teammates that you are frustrated with something that is happening and you are not confident in your ability to give your best for the team. It also communicates that you might be mad at a teammate for a mistake they make. Other option to deal with emotion – Tell your teammate, “lets get this out right here” or don’t respond at all to communicate that whatever happened is what you expected to happen
• If you are not in the lineup and you are not cheering on your teammates in the dugout. Sitting quietly on the bench instead of up at the fence – This communicates you only care about your performance and not the overall performance of the team Other option to deal with emotion – When you see you are not in the lineup, the best way to get your coach’s respect is to be the best frickin teammate in the dugout. Loudest, most encouraging, most locked in player to communicate that you really want to play and want to help the team succeed.
• Coming to warm-ups late or being lackadaisical in warm-ups before a game – This communicates you are not ready to play and/or do not want to give your full focus to the game. Other option to deal with emotion – Have a physical space reminder that gets you to “flip a switch” whether that is when you get out of the car and get your backpack on, or when you get your baseball cleats on so every time it happens that is your cue to lock in to baseball.
• Arguing balls/strike/out/safe calls with umps – This communicates you believe the umpire’s calls have a greater affect on the way you play than the effort you have in your control. Other option to deal with emotion – Don’t say anything out loud or say something into your mitt when it is by yourself in the quiet. Show your teammates that that call does not affect our game plan as a team whatsoever since it is not in our control.
• Throwing helmet after strikeout, crying after strikeout, throwing bat down after strikeout, walking back to dugout with your head down – This communicates you believe the strikeout is more important than the next opportunity you have to affect the game. It also communicates that your strikeout is ‘more important’ than any of your teammates because it happened to you. We have to mature to understand that baseball is a game of failure and to learn to make light of the many, many failures we will have in a baseball game. Other option to deal with emotion – Hustle to dugout and pick up one of your teammates right away so it shows yourself and your teammates that you don’t care that you struck out and that you believe your teammates can also help the team succeed.

We understand as coaches that there is a lot more going on for athletes as human beings than just baseball – home life, relationships, girlfriends, school work, trauma, etc. Coaches need to be emotionally aware and in relationship with their players in order to best help their players on when to push for more accountability and when to give grace and space for a player to be emotional about the things outside of what happens in the sport. Allow children to express their feelings not related to the actual baseball game since those are things that are affecting their gameplay. Anything that happens in the game does not need to take our emotions for a ride though.

The Emotional Parent:

Sometimes the parent is the problem. Let’s talk about that and define some of the parent behaviors that negatively affect the player and the experience for the player and the player’s entire team.

Examples of negative emotional behaviors of parents and why:

• Loud and expressive during the whole game for good plays and bad plays – this communicates that the parent understands that they can affect the environment of the game. And in doing so, it heightens the emotional environment for their child as a player and creates opportunities for your child to believe they should also heighten their emotion. Other option to deal with emotion – Go to the outfield and be by yourself if you cannot regulate in the middle of games. Or recognize that your best responsibility is to be the emotional rock for your child when they might not be as mature.
• Arguing with umpires – this communicates you also believe that the umpire has a greater affect on the game than your own team’s ability to succeed. And it communicates that you believe the call the umpire makes is more important than whether your child is growing in their development as a player, which it absolutely does not. Other option to deal with emotion – Go be by yourself in the outfield if you cannot regulate. Or use that bad call as an opportunity to cheer on your child’s team. When you feel yourself wanting to yell at the umpire, give a positive cheer for your own team.
• Talking to your child during the game – this communicates that this “helpful coaching information” needs to be said right now and that you don’t believe the coach will get their job done. Other option to deal with emotion – Please wait until after the game:) Unless they are injured or dead you don’t need to be in the dugout or on the field.
• Victimizing your child after the game, “the coach should have played you at SS” “That umpire blew that call you should have had two hits” “You are much better than Johnny I don’t know why he plays over you” – this communicates to your child that they are entitled to their own frustrations and that they are righteous in behaving that way as well. It creates a schism between your child and his teammates where they are not required to be a good teammate because they are now given permission to digress from the coach’s instruction. Other option to deal with emotion – Ask them how they feel about their position in the team! Ask them what their coach says they need to work on. Empower them to have autonomy in their development by talking to their coach about what they need to do to play more. Don’t tell your child what relationship with baseball they should have, let them tell you what kind of relationship they want to have. If they want to get better, help them figure out how to achieve that. 

The lynchpin in this whole conversation is the coach of the team. We must recognize that the coach has the most authority as the leader of the team in setting the tone, creating the culture, developing players, etc. If the coach is doing their job as a leader, the parent and player should have a much easier time understanding expectations of the team, which behaviors are appropriate, and overall have way less temptation to become a negatively emotional presence for the team. Some coaches are too authoritative and some are not authoritative enough. We have all had really good experiences and really bad experiences with coaches. We will dive deeper into coach formation; but, let’s continue the conversation about the negative emotional behaviors of coaches.

Examples of negative emotional behaviors of coaches and why:

• Yelling at players after a physical error, “Come on!” “You guys are pathetic!” – this communicates that the coach believes the player made that mistake on purpose! Or that the mistake is more important than any other play in the game. Other option to deal with emotion – Instruct the player on their mistake, correct their mistake, and remind them of the expectation so the mistake does not happen again. Keep it focused on instruction and keep it light. Do you want your team to be motivated by fear or be held accountable to become better players?
• Arguing with umpires – This communicates it is okay for the players to do so as well… which you don’t want. Other option to deal with emotion – Use it as a chance to remind your team of what they are trying to accomplish and cheering them on.
• Telling your pitcher, “throw strikes!” – this communicates you think that he is not trying to? If he could throw strikes he would haha. Other option to deal with emotion – Instruct them on something they can do different. Help them stay emotionally regulated.
• Being a total emotional robot – this communicates confusion to your team. It leaves the players wondering if their coach cares about them, if they understand them, and if they believe in them. Other option to deal with emotion – We have to ask ourselves as coaches, “do we ultimately want our players to become autonomous players with the skills to succeed without us? Or do we only want them to succeed in our own system?” It takes humility; but, we need to create a space where it is clear that what we ultimately desire is the development of the players and the team as a whole.

Getting too high and too low emotionally – this communicates that you are not confident in your team’s ability and don’t trust them so you ride the highs and lows instead of instilling confidence in them. No play is too good or too bad to get over excited about. Other option to deal with emotion – Celebrate good plays showing that you expected your team to perform well and always use bad plays as opportunities for instruction and curiosity. Development is greater than winning.