Is Your Week Helping Your Pitchers?

Table of Contents

• Is Your Week Helping Your Pitchers?

• Competitor vs Victim - Your Pitcher’s Mindset Matt …

Total Reading Time: 8 minutes

Two weekends are in the books and you’re starting to learn more about your staff. In this issue we take a look inside a week with Trisha Ford and how she structures her pitching preparation, along with a quick look inside helping get a pitcher’s mindset right.

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Is Your Week Helping Your Pitchers?

2 weeks in and you’re starting to see what your pitching staff has; it’s makeup, where it’s strong and where you’ve got work to do. You’re learning who can handle the rigors and who might be bending or breaking a bit.

Now there’s more film and data on your opponents, which means you’ve got more studying to do in a week where you already don’t have enough time. Sound familiar?!?!

So lets look at how your week is scheduled to see if you can build or adjust a schedule to cover more with your pitchers. At this year’s Pitching Summit, Trisha Ford, Head Coach and Pitching Coach for Texas A&M, shared her weekly schedule in detail. This helps us pull back the curtain and take a deep-dive into what how somebody else structures their week.

While Monday is usually an Off Day for Trisha, she’s got a purpose for herself and for her pitchers. I love the part where her pitchers are bringing some of their nuggets or “take-aways” from their past weekend outings.

I love the “pitchouts every Tuesday” since these are easy to overlook so having an actual day for this makes practicing them a habit. Also notice that while Tuesday is Movement Day, there’s a limit on the number of pitches each pitcher is focusing on (1-2) so zoomed-in work can be done.

Wednesday is long and hard to build up both mental and physical endurance. She tells them this ahead of time so they’ll “get their mind right”. 

The final practice day of the week focuses on command to head off into the weekend able to nail your locations. I love her questions as they’ll help prep her pitchers for what to expect and help them eliminate the unknowns.

While you definitely don’t have to do things the way Trisha Ford does, the idea of having a structured week with a focus and intention for each day, that logically builds and prepares your pitchers for the upcoming weekend gives you the best chance for success.

Thanks Trisha, for sharing what you do with all of us!

NOTE: If you want to watch Trisha’s entire presentation along with the whole Pitching Summit - click here

Competitor vs Victim - Your Pitcher’s Mindset Matters

As humans we’re always having conversations with ourselves, and very often, those conversations are harmful.

Our pitchers self-talk is vital to their performance because it dictates not only how well they pitch, but more importantly, how well they’re able to respond and rebound after not pitching well.

Novak Djokovic, one of the best tennis players in history is best known for the strength of his mental game. In an interview with 60 Minutes, Novak talked about how “thinking positive” just isn’t possible.

Instead, he recognizes he’ll have his mental doubts, he doesn’t stay in them. When he feels those doubts, he has a quick outburst - almost blasting those feelings out of himself - and then quickly moves on to a stronger mindset.

What I found works best with pitchers is to have them choose to Be Curious instead of Critical following a bad pitch or bad game. Criticism is the language that we’re used to speaking to our pitchers, and that they’re used to speaking to themselves. It sounds like “why did you do that?”, “what were you thinking?”, “Why am I doing that?”, “What’s wrong with me?”…these are all open-ended, Victim type questions that come from a mindset of a lack of control. Which won’t lead to a solution.

Instead, shifting to a Curious mindset puts you on a search for a solution. It sounds like “What am I doing that’s causing that pitch to lift?”, “Where’s the edge of the zone?”, “Let’s see how low he’ll call that pitch?”, “Am I being Intentful?”, “I need to slow my breathing down.” This mindset does not make excuses but instead, is constantly working to solve problems.

A Curious mindset leads to your best Competitive Self. It brings out your skills, at their highest level and when you need them most. To help get your pitchers to adopt this mindset, you’ve got to coach with a Curious mindset. You’ve got to ask questions that are curios. You’ve got to stop suppling all the answers. Let your pitchers explore solutions. You’ve got to ween them off of your knowledge and help them develop trust in their own.

A Victim mindset leads to your worst self. It clouds your skills and makes you careful, and powerless. This mindset leads to in-action and hesitation, This also starts with you. You’ve got to stop coaching with criticism and instead, switch your own dial to curiosity. I get it. It’s frickin’ hard not to be mad when you’ve gone over and over something, only to have that pitcher blow it again in a game. But anger clouds your ability to find the solution.

As coaches, that is what we are - solution-finders. Providing solutions gives your pitchers hope. It tells them you believe in them and their IS a way out of this.

As you go they go.

It realize this might sound simplistic, and in concept, it is. But it takes diligent work, every single day in bullpens and games to eventually develop a mindset that will quickly turn curious when the shit hits the fan. To come up with a solution and move on, YOU and your pitchers need to be mentally curious, which will make you both stronger and better.

I Hope you enjoyed today’s Curveball Chronicles Issue. If there’s something specific you want to read about send that to me at [email protected], or text me at (813) 368-2048

See You Next Week!