Miguel Montero: Negative Thoughts Are Normal

       The playoffs have been great so far.  They have been filled with some really big, high pressure moments (all of them or none of them, I'd argue).  Something of particular interest to me is every single team who made the playoffs has some sort of sport psychology professional as part of the organization.  What they do, how much they're there, whether it's one or a team of them, etc. varies, but no teams without SOMEBODY made the playoffs.  This is great because baseball, as much as we preach process, is ultimately a very results-driven industry.  Hopefully the ten or so organizations without anyone will do what's best for its players and follow suit.  Anyway, I bring that up because there is a noticeable mental influence present in both the actions during games and the post-game comments of players and managers.  "Slowing the game down," "being in the moment," and "executing regardless of the situation" have been three of the major themes I've seen.  They're great concepts that are empty words unless the How and Why are taught along with them.  With the players and managers discussing the concepts, there is little doubt they have.  Although they're principles of performance I very much believe in,  I found myself particularly fascinated by Miguel Montero's comments about his game-winning grand slam last night for the Cubs.  There is a message behind what he says that is important for all coaches and athletes interested in the mental side of the game to hear and understand.

        "You've got to be positive!"  No you don't.  You want to be positive.  Being positive about your abilities is preferable to being negative.  Over an extended period of time, if you don't believe you are good you probably won't be.  But in a particular moment, it's okay to have a negative thought.  In fact, it's normal.  The average person's daily thoughts are 77% negative!  We can't expect that number to magically be 0% when they are playing their sport!  Understanding this is important.  It's particularly important to the athletes who are their own greatest critics and are "perfectionists."  If they don't understand, then they'll punish for the thought.  The punishment leads to more and more negativity.  That is when the at-bat speeds up and likely results in the turn back to the dugout.  Miguel Montero was down 0-2 and had missed a great pitch to hit already.  He thought about how he should have crushed the pitch before and had trouble letting it go.  What is important is he didn't allow those negative thoughts to speed him up or make him mail in the at-bat.  Of equal importance to mention is how the negative thoughts are more observational than judgmental.  There is a big difference between, "I should have hit that pitch" and "I suck for missing that.  Now I'll never get a hit."  Montero mentions stepping out and in a longer quote how he was just trying to put a ball in play.  He was able to refocus and come through for his team.  The swing he takes isn't defensive at all or indicative of a fear of failing.  This swing probably doesn't happen if he has been told the only way to perform is to be positive 100% of the time.  To have negative thoughts is to be human.  To act in spite of them, similar to acting in spite of fear, is true courage.  It's true focus.  It's true mental game.  Understand this, and give yourself the freedom of the best chance for you to be successful.

Before He Was Thor

        If you're like me, you're excited for the NL Wild Card game tonight.  The pitching matchup of Madison Bumgarner and Noah Syndergaard.  The two both have reputations as being tough and competitive on the mound.  Bumgarner's postseason resume speaks for itself as in the debate for the greatest of all time.  Syndergaard won two games last year at the age of 22 and is well known for the first pitch behind Alcides Escobar in the World Series.  Although there is a lot to be written about Bumgarner, the focus of the blog today is going to be Noah "Thor" Syndergaard.  More specifically, it's going to be about how Thor wasn't always Thor.  There has been a lot of time and effort put into becoming the guy who had this to say about pitching in the winner-take-all Wild Card Game Wednesday night:  "It's like every little kid's dream come true to pitch in a real high-stakes game.  So, I'll embrace it.  I look forward to it.  It should be a lot of fun."

        Before Noah Syndergaard was the guy looking forward to pitching in the Wild Card game, his physical stuff was ahead of his mental "stuff."  I remembered people talking about his mental challenges, and a simple Google search yielded some solid quotes from 2014 while Syndergaard was in the Minor Leagues.  They're addressed below:

"I feel like my stuff is there from the physical part of the game.  It's just all about the mental aspect."

The acknowledgement is there that Syndergaard had work to do on the mental side.  Understanding the mental side is something to work on is important to getting anything out of it.  If you ignore its importance, you likely will be an inconsistent player.

"I think I improved pretty drastically....But more the mental side of the game.  It was my first season I really struggled for a certain span of time.  I really had to adapt and really learned a lot."

This quote is from the end of 2014.  Your athletic career, and life for that matter, are a constant adaptation.  Struggles are tough to go through, but you can learn from them if you allow yourself.  Understanding why things happen, rationally, is a major step in the right direction for any athlete or coach.

"I feel like if it was earlier in the season, with where my mindset was at, I would have probably been done after three innings.  I would have been beaten out there....That's just the way things were going and I didn't know how to handle it all that well."

One of the most difficult things for a pitcher is being able to get past a bad inning.  Many times things snowball for any number of reasons.  Thoughts of how the result of the total outing isn't going to be there no matter what after a crooked number, discomfort with your stuff, and just wondering if you are going to be out of the game any pitch now are only a few.  Being able to value every pitch, every hitter, and every inning properly can help with this.  Every pitch is important, but no pitch is ever worth two.  Your job as a pitcher is to compete and throw with conviction for however long you are on the mound regardless of circumstance.  As a position player, it's to compete offensively and defensively and to do so regardless of a bad at-bat or a rough play in the field.

"It's just being more consistent."
Consistent behavior gets consistent results.  You want to be consistent?  Do what it takes to consistently execute pitches.  I can't tell you what that means from a preparation standpoint because it's different for different pitchers.  Ultimately, it takes what it takes.  What it takes, once the game starts, is conviction and skill.


Those are just a few quotes from a young(er) Noah Syndergaard on the mental side of his game.  I think they're important to consider for several reasons.  The first is there is a tendency to accredit mental toughness to just the way an athlete is.  I'd be willing to bet a year's salary there will be a tweet come across my timeline tonight implying as much about Syndergaard and/or Bumgarner (shoot me a message if you want to take the bet!).  In reality, genetics can help, but mental toughness, whatever it is, develops over time.  There has been a clear evolution of Syndergaard over the years.  After all, we have seen that high school yearbook picture!  The development is the second key reason for the piece today.  A strong mental game takes time.  Nobody can make you a "master of the mental game" in one easy session or one book.  If they promise you as much, I'd encourage you to run as fast as you can in another direction.  It takes time to improve your skills whether they are physical or mental.  Be patient, and stay with it.  Thor, like Rome, wasn't built in a day.  Neither are you.