Slumping

We see it consistently. A player begins the season super-hot. Pitchers are unhittable, and hitters can't appear to make contact. They barrel through for quite a long time and after that—descend. Experts scratch their heads, managers knock them down the lineup, water coolers are tossed over and in some cases that player winds up riding the pine. Far more terrible, some recover the feared call down to the minors. The mindset of a slump resembles the Five Stages of Grief. I know, it sounds absurd, yet recollect any slump you've been in and check whether any of these sentiments ring a ringer:

Disavowal – "Nah, going 0-12 at the plate the last 3 games happens. Simply misfortune." Hello, possibly it was misfortune. Perhaps the sun was in your eyes. Hell, perhaps there was an opening in the bat. Truly, you're as of now inside your own head and you don't know it. The speedier you wake up and understand that you may be a headcase at the plate, the better.

Outrage –   "WHY CAN'T I GET A !@#$% HIT!?" Great observation, however hollering, and tossing your helmet over the bench surely isn't the solution. I've never observed somebody go to the plate raging distraughtly and smack one over the wall. Calmly inhale, unwind, and recollect that this game should be fun.

Dealing – "Dear Baseball Gods: If you convey the ball into my bat and into the outfield for a hit, I will sacrifice a sack of sunflower seeds on the dugout steps." Spare the seeds, nobody can help you however you.

Discouragement – "I'll never work out of this. What's the point?" This is maybe the most exceedingly bad stage and the minute where baseball doesn't appear fun any longer. However, the sound individual in you should realize that baseball is enjoyable. Of course, you may not pulverize line drives and get on, yet despite everything you're putting in light of that uniform, going through the grass and earth and hanging out with your companions. What's discouraging about that?

Acknowledgment –, "Guess what? This happens, so I should ride it out." Congrats. This is the hardest thing to genuinely figure it out. A few players may state this to themselves ahead of schedule in the slump to attempt to deceive themselves, however you need to genuinely feel it with the goal for it to work. You can work your way through these phases in a matter of a couple of games or it can take a large portion of a season.

The Importance of Teamwork

Teamwork is invaluable in sports because achieving team success or getting a win almost always requires the complete effort of every team member. Even sports that are considered individual sports often form teams to benefit from success from the other players for the individual athletes. One or two players on any given team may dominate some team sports like Lebron James in basketball, or Aaron Rodgers in Football but in many team sports, every athlete’s performance matters and they must play well enough in order to win.

In a sport such as baseball, each player relies on his teammates to play well because not all players can directly influence the outcome of the game. Football and soccer are similar in these respects, as a defensive player strives to keep the other team from scoring, but must rely on the offensive players to do the scoring for their team. Sports such as swimming or gymnastics rely on the team’s overall score, but each participant is active at different times. Tennis is usually a single-player sport, but in doubles matches, two players form a team and feed and rely on each other to make plays and do their job.

In general, the fewer players that are active at a time, the more each player is responsible for the outcome. Accordingly, a single player can dominate team sports such as basketball, which uses only five players at a time and usually only has about 9 or 10 players who actually contribute in a game. By contrast, football teams feature 11 players at a time, and 22 total. This is why championships in football are much more considered a team success. Take Basketball for an example, no one talks about how a team has a championship, but rather how a singular player has a championship.

My Strengths and Weaknesses

I would have to say that identifying your strengths and weaknesses is one of the most important things that you need to be able to do as a college athlete in order to succeed. Because if you don’t know what to work on then you will never improve and become better. But the catch is that it is really easy to identify them, but then you have to be able to work on them and morph everything into a strength which is really really hard to do. I myself really struggle sometimes with being able to balance both and not let one or the other outweigh the other. Sometimes it’s just impossible to fix a weakness so you have to try to minimize it as best as you can which is what I usually do given my weaknesses.

Strengths: I find that I am usually pretty good at sticking to the fundamentals of baseball and not really stray from the basic things about hitting, fielding, running, etc. Cause usually if you forget to do something simple it will mess up a lot of other things so all your motions and things you’ve learned will go away and you will struggle very easily. When this happens, it can be really hard to get back in your groove for a long time.

Weaknesses: Without a doubt my biggest weakness is getting angry at myself when bad things happen whether it be in baseball or in life. Even when it’s really simple things like dropping a ball or swinging and missing. But better yet even when I do good things to me it’s like “Oh ok well I’m supposed to be doing that anyways so why should I even be excited about it?” So lately I’ve been really trying to enjoy when I do good things when I'm playing and not try to get as angry about negative things.

Professionals I Look Up To

    Every athlete that is dedicated and cares about their sport and their success looks up to a professional. Baseball is no different and has a wide array of players to idolize and model skills after. For many it is just a really good player that everyone likes and knows like Mike Trout, Clayton Kershaw, Adrian Beltre, etc. For me, I like to focus on players that are less known for their production and instead look closely at players' mechanics and what special things about them make them a professional. Also, I look at players that I play the same position as. In this case, I am a catcher so I look up to people who play the same position as me.

    My favorite player that I model my game after the most is Jonathan Lucroy, who played for my two favorite teams, the Brewers and Rangers. The reason that I like him as a player is because he is known for his great defense but is also one of the best hitting catchers in the game, and today it is very hard to find a catcher that excels at both. Specifically, he is really good at throwing out base stealers, and owns one of the best percentages in that category. To add to that, last season Lucroy was among the league leading catchers in framing (the act of making a ball appear as a strike to the umpire). These two skills together form a very good and serviceable player that can be utilized in every teams' system.

    Lucroy's hitting is also one of the best attributes about him that makes him a valuable commodity. Last season he was among the league's best catchers in Batting Average (the average performance of a batter, expressed as a ratio of a batter's safe hits per official times at bat). This is one of the most important stats to determine how dependable a player can be. He also doesn't really hit for power like me, so instead he hits balls hard instead of far. This can lead to more base hits and doubles. Which Lucroy owns the MLB record for most doubles hit in a single season by a catcher.