HEAD GAMES

The mental edge could be what your players need to succeed. In this article, some of the game’s top head coaches and peak performance consultants give advice on coaching the mental side of baseball.

By Kenny Berkowitz

Kenny Berkowitz is an Assistant Editor at Coaching Management.
He can be reached at: kb@MomentumMedia.com

Striding to the plate during the 2006 Colonial Athletic Association tournament, Kellen Kulbacki stopped outside the batter’s box to go through his hitting routine. The Louisville Slugger National Co-Player of the Year and James Madison University’s record holder in career home runs, extra base hits, and slugging percentage, Kulbacki had a specific warmup he always used before digging in. But the umpire told him to hurry and told the pitcher to pitch. He called out, “Strike one!” before Kulbacki had even shouldered the bat.

“We were watching from the dugout to see what would happen next,” says JMU Head Coach Spanky McFarland. “There are a lot of players who would have gotten mad and lost focus for the rest of their at-bat, but not Kellen. He stepped out of the box, went through his routine again, and refocused.

“When he was ready, he stepped back into the box and hit the next pitch 440 feet for a home run,” continues McFarland. “He showed us all the power of mental training. We went on to win that game, and all we talked about afterward was how Kellen hadn’t let that umpire’s call get to him.”

Like McFarland, more and more coaches are turning to mental training to teach their players how to perform well under pressure, gain an advantage over opponents, and learn the larger life lessons that come from being on either side of a 90-mile-an-hour fastball. “You can do physical drills over and over again, but if you really want an edge, you need to look at the mental game,” McFarland says. “The bottom line is that you need to create the best possible scenario for each player to be successful in every situation. That’s what the mental game is all about.”

All About Process

Teaching the mental game begins by asking players to set aside basic goals like striking out the side or hitting the winning home run. Instead, mental training focuses on the learning process itself.

“From the beginning of their educational experiences, youngsters are trained to focus on external rewards, especially in sports,” says Augie Garrido, Head Coach at the University of Texas. “Winning becomes all they hear about, whether it’s getting a gold star on a spelling test or hitting a home run in Little League. There’s no emphasis on process, which is what it really takes to master a skill. It is a huge effort to retrain athletes to focus on the process itself, but it’s necessary.”

Brian Cain, a peak performance coach who consults at the high school, college, and professional levels, tells athletes to concentrate on only those things they can personally control. “If a player becomes too focused on outcome, they can miss what’s truly important in the game of baseball, which is the ability to play the game one pitch at a time,” says Cain, also Athletic Director at Mt. Mansfield Union High School in Jericho, Vt. “In golf, if you take the right swing, the ball usually goes where you want it. But in baseball, you can do everything right—take the right swing at the right pitch and hit the ball as hard as you can—and still make an out.

“The process of throwing a quality pitch or having a quality at-bat usually leads to a desirable result, but not always,” he continues. “So if a player is evaluating his success based only on end results, it’s a recipe for disaster.”

Whether they’re practicing or playing in a game, pitchers can benefit from a coach charting their pitches to see how effectively they’re hitting the target. “If the catcher calls for a fastball low and away, and that’s exactly where the pitcher places the ball, we put an ‘x’ on the chart,” Cain says. “Whether that pitch is taken for a strike or hit for a home run, we consider it a quality pitch.

“We chart every pitch, and we evaluate each pitcher’s performance based on location, because that’s the only thing he can truly control,” he continues. “At the high school level, we’ve found that pitchers who throw quality pitches 65 to 70 percent of the time will in turn win about 90 percent of their games. At the college and professional levels, that percentage has to increase because hitters are so much better. But at every level, having the command to consistently throw the ball where you want is an effective predictor of success.”

At JMU, McFarland uses a similar technique with batters. Coaches grade each batted ball on a scale of zero to five, with five being the hardest hit. “We put a big emphasis on quality at-bats,” he says. “You can make an out or even strike out and still have a quality at-bat. If it took 10 pitches to strike you out, or if you’re smoking the ball but you fly out, that’s still a quality at-bat.”

Relaxed & Confident

Another part of mental training is getting athletes focused, relaxed, and confident. Cain’s athletes achieve this by training to mentally prepare for their sport as they change into their uniforms. As they take off their street clothes, he asks them to imagine shedding their off-field concerns one item at a time. When they put on their uniform, he asks them to commit completely to their coaches, teammates, and themselves, concentrating all their energy on the game.

“It’s like Clark Kent becoming Superman,” Cain says. “They come into the locker room as the ultimate student and go out as the ultimate athlete. Then at the end of practice, they do it all in reverse. They take off the uniform thinking, ‘There’s the ball I missed. There’s the time I struck out.’ That changing process helps them separate their lives on and off the field, and makes it easier for them to focus completely on the here and now.”

At the beginning of a practice session, Cain teaches athletes to use a simple, five-minute relaxation technique. “I’ll have everyone on the team sit together in the dugout and untie their shoes,” he says. “I tell them to close their eyes, slowly inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth, focus on their breathing, and work their way up the body.

“I’ll say, ‘When you hear the number five, I want you to relax your feet, calves, and shins,’” Cain continues. “Then I’ll work my way up the body: Four is the knees, quads, hamstrings, hip flexors, glutes, and groin. Three is the abs, obliques, lower back, mid-back, chest, and ribs. Two is the shoulders, biceps, triceps, forearms, and hands. And one is the neck, scalp, face, and forehead.”

By becoming focused and relaxed, athletes develop self-assurance. “Mental training is all about fear and confidence,” Garrido says. “Fear makes it very difficult for an athlete to stay focused. No matter how long you play the game, some fears never completely subside, but confidence helps put them into perspective. Confidence is the single most important ingredient in a player’s ability to stay in the moment.”

McFarland has incorporated those lessons into what he calls “dry mechanics,” teaching pitchers to practice without the ball. “More often than not, it’s the first time our freshmen have been asked to focus on the mental game,” he says. “So we usually start pitchers with breathing and relaxation, because it’s something that we can easily see. Either the pitcher is taking a deep breath or he’s not. Either his shoulders are relaxed or they’re not.”

McFarland also points out that the actions of teammates can greatly affect an individual’s confidence, especially the younger players. “If a batter has crushed the ball, even if it’s caught, we want him to come back to the dugout with everybody high-fiving him anyway,” he says.

Value Of Visualization

Visualization is another key to the mental game. Like every other baseball skill, visualization needs to be developed, practiced, and sharpened over time. “It doesn’t happen overnight,” Cain says. “It has be done on a daily basis. I generally try to start athletes in a quiet, controlled, and relaxed environment.

“Over time, it’s important to move beyond that controlled environment,” he continues. “I’ll start that transition by creating distractions—turning the lights on and off, slamming the door, or running my fingers down a chalkboard. Because in a real game, they’ll need to maintain focus amid a wide variety of distractions.”

After Cain takes players through their locker room routine, they practice some basic imagery exercises. “I’ll say, ‘I want you to see yourself at practice today giving your best effort, getting stronger from drill to drill. I want you to see yourself hitting the ball and see your teammates cheering in the dugout. If you strike out, I want you to see yourself walking back to the dugout and giving the next batter positive energy,’” he says.

When his pitchers have trouble visualizing their pitches, McFarland goes with a literal view instead. He films them from behind to demonstrate the movement of the ball over the plate. If that doesn’t work, he videotapes the movement of balls from the pitching machine, editing out all but the last few feet to train pitchers to follow the flight of a breaking ball.

Jeff McKay, who gives workshops for high school, college, and international baseball teams as Director of Be Your Own Coach, uses a drill that incorporates visualization during practice as well. He rolls imaginary grounders at infielders, training them to say “hit” as the imaginary ball leaves his hand, “roll” as it rolls, and “glove” as it lands in their glove.

He repeats the drill by rolling a real ball, and follows by hitting ground balls around the infield and training fielders to count the number of bounces out loud until the ball reaches their glove. Outfielders are taught to say “hit” the moment a fly ball is hit, “up, up, up” as it rises, “peak” at its highest point, “down, down, down” as it falls, and “catch” as it reaches their glove.

“Players need to coach themselves out loud and use one syllable long verbalizations,” McKay says. “Of course, the players may think it’s a pain in the neck to vocalize each time, but it’s an important part of keeping them tuned into the movement of the ball.”

In a lesson he learned from Cain, McFarland talks to his pitchers about carrying metaphorical bricks. A bad pitch is like a brick, and if athletes can’t learn to let go of the past, they’ll find themselves weighed down by a ton of bricks. “As a pitcher, you have to start your routine by accepting responsibility for the pitch you just threw,” McFarland says. “Let’s say you had a bad pitch that was hit for a double. You don’t need to dwell on it, you need to step off the mound, take a breath, and refocus. What’s done is done, and you have to get the last pitch out of your mind before you can start thinking about the next one.”

Creating A Routine

One way to build awareness is to have athletes create a mental routine to focus their minds and bodies on each pitch. At JMU, McFarland breaks a typical game into about 250 pitches, each separated by approximately 15 seconds. He says players should use that short pause between each one to regroup and refocus.

“The best baseball players learn a routine and practice it until they’re ready, both mentally and physically, for each pitch,” he says. “Whether you’re a pitcher, hitter, or fielder, that 15 seconds between pitches can make the difference between delivering under pressure and failure. Working on that in-between routine every day is the key to focusing your mind.”

To give his players a clearer picture of what he is talking about, McFarland describes those 15 seconds as the face of a stopwatch. Time starts at the top of the circle at the end of the last play, moves clockwise through the break, and ends back at the top, when players need to be mentally ready for the next pitch. And though the specific routine will vary with each player and situation, it should always include accepting personal responsibility, taking a deep breath, and making the decision to refocus.

At JMU, players develop a hitting routine that starts the moment they step out of the dugout. “When they’re in the on-deck circle, they’re working on getting into the moment, timing the pitcher, and getting focused,” McFarland says. “Once they get to the plate, they need to take ownership of the batter’s box. So the first thing they do is clean it off a little bit, as if to say, ‘This is my box now.’ Then they step out, look for their signal, and start focusing their eyes.”

During batting practice, McFarland creates a station for players to work specifically on their mental game, repeating their routine over and over. As part of every practice and before every game, players work on their hitting mechanics with everything but a ball, rehearsing their mental routine, practicing their swing, and visualizing an entire at-bat down to the finest details. “When players visualize, it needs to be as realistic as possible,” he says. “For example, if a hitter is going to visualize the winning hit, I want him to smell the pine tar. I want him to touch the wood grain. I want him to internalize every detail so he can recover that feeling when he’s in the game.”

To develop consistent mechanics, Cain trains pitchers to create a mental routine before each pitch using a two-pronged verbal and visual approach. “If you want physical consistency, you need to have mental consistency, using the same routine each time,” Cain says. “Before each pitch, I tell pitchers to relax: ‘Take a good, deep breath. Bring oxygen into your system. Slow yourself down. Establish a consistent starting point.’

“Usually I have pitchers look down at their shoelace or a pebble while they’re drawing that breath—something that’s always going to be there,” he continues. “So they look down, look up, get their sign, and start their mechanics with a pitch thought. For example, most of the pitchers I work with use the thought ‘pound it’ or ‘blow it up’ each time they throw the ball. As they start their mechanics, I want them to concentrate on pounding the mitt with a good, aggressive fastball. There’s a big difference between a 90-mile-an-hour fastball and a 90-mile-an-hour fastball that’s been thrown with commitment and conviction to pound that glove.”

In The Moment

Ultimately, mental training is about concentration. When at the plate, the better a batter is able to concentrate, the more likely he is to succeed.

McKay believes the key to success on the baseball field is to help athletes gain the self-awareness they need to coach themselves. “In most cases, we don’t need to tell kids what to do,” he says. “If we can help them become aware of what their bodies are doing, they’ll fix themselves.”

McKay teaches coaches to follow the three basic rules of TIP, which stands for: Take note, Improve, and Practice. To correct batting mechanics with TIP, coaches ask athletes to take note of their swing, and try to gauge that athlete’s perception of what he is and isn’t doing well. In most cases, athletes are largely unaware of their movements, and in some cases, coaches may need to demonstrate their mistakes before athletes realize what they’re doing wrong. In the second part of TIP, athletes improve as they teach themselves to feel the difference between effective and ineffective batting mechanics, while internalizing an image of what it looks like for them to hit well. In the third, athletes continue to practice with and without their coaches until they can demonstrate the ability to coach themselves.

“I’ll start by asking a batter a general question: ‘When you swing, what do your legs do?’” McKay says. “If he doesn’t know, I’ll have him swing the bat, directing him to pay attention to his lower body, and then I’ll ask again. If he still doesn’t know, that tells me he’s not aware of his mechanics, which is why he makes mistakes like stepping in the bucket.

“The next time he swings, I tell him to freeze and observe his lead leg, which is the first time he realizes his foot is in the bucket,” he continues. “Now we’re getting somewhere. I tell him to take a step toward the pitcher, and when he does, he feels the difference in his body. He recognizes how it feels to take a good swing, which is the start of learning to coach himself. He knows the feeling of stepping straight at the pitcher, so the next time he feels himself stepping in the bucket, he’ll be able to correct it himself.”

McKay also works with fielders to develop a sense of awareness. He says paying attention is the number one skill to master in baseball. Instead of telling players to keep their gloves down, he encourages coaches to ask, “Where is your glove? How far is it from the ground?” The answers show players where they need to adjust.

By the time the pitcher is ready to make his next pitch, he needs to internalize the ways the external situation changed since the last pitch. “Did the runners move up? Did the count change? Is there a new hitter?” McFarland says. “Then, when he’s back on the mound, he has to be calm again, loosening his shoulders, catching his breath, and concentrating on the catcher’s next sign. I want him to internalize the sign and visualize the last five feet of that pitch as the ball breaks.”

“Then, right before the windup, I want him to again repeat his mental cue,” McFarland continues. “It might be as long as, ‘I’ve trained for this, I get into position, and I let it go’ or as short as, ‘Let it go.’ That’s how the routine ends, with the pitcher back in the moment. He needs to go through this entire routine the same way every time, even when working in the bullpen.”

Right Time, Right Place

As players mature from youth baseball to high school and college ball, the focus of their mental training needs to advance along with their physical tools. At the high school level, Cain focuses most of his training on introducing athletes to the process of mastering skills.

“Mental training in high school is more about character and life skill development than winning,” he says. “It’s about increasing the quality of their performance during practice so they can treat practice sessions like games and games like practices. If they can do that, their performance is going to improve dramatically.”

Some of the greatest improvements will come from the youngest players, which is why Cain advocates teaching mental skills as soon as possible. “Bringing the mental game to those kids and coaches at a younger level will not only let them perform better, but will make them appreciate the game a lot more,” he says. “Imagine training mental skills at age eight instead of age 18. With 10 more years of quality development before they get to high school, how much better are those kids going to be?”

Best of all, mental skills can fit in just about anywhere in a team’s schedule. “Just about any time is good for teaching players about mental training,” Cain says. “You don’t need to block out individual half-hour segments with each of your players. You can spend five minutes one-on-one during lunch, or on a bus ride to a game, or in the dugout during a rain delay. There’s so much wasted time that can be used to connect with your players and help them focus.”

“Mental training is priceless,” adds Garrido. “Anything that helps your players develop confidence, nurture that confidence, and continue to grow as they face the adversity that baseball continually throws at them, is going to have a huge effect on your athletes and your team.”

In a Slump

Do slumps exist? Only in the mind, say peak performance coaches Brian Cain and Jeff McKay. For Cain, Athletic Director at Mt. Mansfield Union High School in Jericho, Vt., turning around a slump begins with a conversation.

“When I talk to athletes who think they’re in a slump, I start by asking about their thought process,” Cain says. “They invariably tell me about how they’re struggling. If I say, ‘Tell me about the last time you were a great hitter,’ they can’t. They’re thinking of themselves as bad hitters. They’re so focused on negatives, they’ve forgotten why they love baseball.

“A lot of times, the images in their mind are defeating them, and using visualization can make the difference,” he continues. “They need to take responsibility for controlling those images, replacing them with positive ones and refocusing on quality at-bats, not on things they can’t control.”

McKay, who gives workshops for high school, college, and international baseball teams as Director of Be Your Own Coach, agrees. “A slump is just a made-up concept,” he says. “When athletes tell you they’re in a slump, you need to resist the urge to buy into that label. The reality is you’re in the perfect position to help them get past that concept so they can start hitting again.

“For example, during a game at Middlebury College, this .434 hitter who was batting 0-for-3 told me he was in a slump,” McKay continues. “I needed to find an integrated mental-physical way to get him past the concept, so we did a couple of drills in the dugout to regain his focus. Standing three feet away, I asked him to say ‘pitch’ at the moment of release every time I tossed him the ball. Then I asked him to catch the ball on the front of his bat and say ‘bunt’ at the moment of contact. We did that about half a dozen times, with me tossing the ball and him saying ‘pitch, bunt’ until he was confident again that he could follow the ball. That was the end of his ‘slump,’ simply because he was able to get his mind off the concept and onto the ball.”

Coaching Yourself

After more than 30 years as a coach, Spanky McFarland still gets ejected from a couple of games every season. “I have a reputation as a slow burner, so I’ve been working on my own particular form of release, trying not to hold on to whatever happened in the last pitch,” says the James Madison University Head Coach. “Over the years, I’ve learned to delegate more responsibility to my assistant coaches, which has made it easier to concentrate and kept me from feeling mentally and physically drained. Staying completely focused for three hours is a hard thing to do, so I’ve learned to release and refocus after each pitch, and it’s making me a better coach.

“There are still times when I argue a call—that’s just part of the game,” McFarland continues. “In the heat of the moment, there are still times when I do something regrettable, so I try to use those as teaching moments. I’ll gather my athletes together and say, ‘After all the things I’ve been teaching you about maintaining your concentration, you just saw an example of how not to stay focused.’”

It’s a critical lesson to learn, says Brian Cain, Athletic Director at Mt. Mansfield Union High School in Jericho, Vt., and a Peak Performance consultant for high school, college, and professional athletes. Coaches need to set an example of mental toughness. “When an umpire makes a bad call, instead of storming onto the field, stay in the dugout and say, ‘So what? Next pitch!’” Cain says. “Be the leader. Demonstrate how you want your players to act. Do you have so little confidence that you need to have every call go your way? If you do, you need to find another profession. If you don’t, the next time one of your players makes an error, be the first one to say, ‘Next pitch’ and keep your players focused on the game.