In the past few posts I have talked about setting goals, and in those posts I have used the term “process oriented”. What I want each player to do is stick to the process, you can not change everyday, you can create a new you all the time. You have to have a goal and stick to it. As mentioned before if you are 0-12 but you have hit 8 missiles right at people you should not change anything. That is called sticking to the process. What is a process when it comes to baseball? It is the way you prepare. Lets say everyday you get to the field and you put your right cleat on first tie it then put your left cleat on and tie it. After you do that you go down to the cage and hit 20 balls of the tee, when you are done with that you and a teammate hit a bucket of soft toss (from the front), the, you move back to a short batting practice. When the game starts and you are on deck you always stretch then take 3 practice swings. After you do that you try to time a few pitches, which is affected by the hitter, but at least you try each time. Now you walk up to the batters box, stop, tighten each batting glove step in with your back foot then your front foot hit the plate twice and then finally get in your stance. This is all part of your process to prepare you to play and have the most success you can possibly have. Your process helps prepare you mentally, it gets you in the same place every time, and you should not change it just because the line drives aren’t falling, relax, stick to the process and they will.
Being Result oriented in baseball will get you hurt. If you are strictly result oriented you will be constantly changing things. The most common stat in any box score is 0-something. Hitters don’t change their swing every game or even their stance when they have an off day, they simply get in the cage and keep working. Pitchers don’t change their motion and delivery after every loss either, if they did they would never have success because they could never find a rhythm due to lack of a process.
The biggest thing to remember is numbers can be deceiving. The best example I can give you about sticking to the process and not worrying about numbers is Joe Carter. In 1986 Joe Carter hit .302, 29Hrs, 121RBI. In 1989 he hit .243 35HR’s 105RBI. Even though his average dropped way off Joe hit 6 more HR’s and drove in 16 less runs but still drove in over 100. The RBI total could have been affected by guys in front of him not getting on base, But the point is he could have freaked out because his average was awful, went to the batting cages and changed every thing he was doing but if you watch tape of the two years you will find he didn’t do that. Every thing looked the same, chances are a few of his line drives didn’t fall or a few of the bloopers he hit in ‘86 didn’t drop in ‘89. Numbers can be really deceiving because had I just showed you his batting average you would have thought he had a horrible year in ‘89.
No matter what is going on stick to the process. Stay aggressive early in counts, put the ball in play with two strikes and with a runner on 3rd with less then two outs, get all the little things done. All of this will move you in the right direction to be successful, stay the course, changing things will only cause you more stress.
