“I hear the traditional pitching coach platitudes of ‘get ahead, just throw strikes, relax’, all the time, but they are very empty in terms of direction. They are not much help to a pitcher. It would be like me telling you that the secret of the stock market is to buy low and sell high, or that the secret to a good marriage is communication. It is true, but very empty. What athletes need is specifics on how to do it.”

“I had a coach come to me once at the mound and say ‘Ron, your falling behind hitters, your leaving the ball up, and you are not getting your curveball over for strikes, and this will be your last hitter if you can’t do it.’ What he said was just about as helpful as a drunken guy in the stands yelling ‘Hey Wolforth, you got to throw strikes’. I said to myself, I knew that already. What I needed, and not necessarily at that time during the game, but more so during the previous practices and preparation up to the game was how I could have made those in game adjustments, based off of my awareness and the feedback that I was getting from the game.”

Coaches are often quick on giving mechanical advice or to label a pitcher, but rarely give the pitcher the skills necessary to have the awareness of what is going on, or the ability to deal with pressure packed situations. One of the things that Wolforth recommends is that coaches first spend the time to get a better understanding of who their pitcher are as people and what there pitching instructional background has been.

“I think that the first thing coaches need to learn to do, and it comes right from Stephen Covey’s 7-habits of highly effective people is ‘Seek first to understand, then to be understood. So often pitching coaches want to make a quick fix on a guy with mechanics, but they need to do a better job drawing out the information from the pitcher about what they feel and are experiencing while they are pitching. A pitcher might be leaving the ball up because they are rushing, so we make a mechanical fix to keep them back, but the reason the ball is up is because the pitcher is mentally in fast forward. They are putting too much pressure on themselves and trying to do to much. Too often we use labels that a kid is easily rattled or gets frustrated easily, or is a chocker, but have we taught them how to respond correctly and to be in-control of themselves in those situations?”

“Often when a pitcher makes a move to a higher level, high school to college, or college to pro, the new pitching coach will recommend mechanical adjustments the first day. Rather than trying to find out what the pitcher does well and working with them to get better with in their own pitching style. Seeking to understand means that you have to honor the pitchers past, and you have to understand what they have done and who they have worked with. That doesn’t mean that you can’t make changes, but we have to know where a pitcher is coming from and what they have been taught in the past.”

Many times we as coaches fall into the rut of trying to teach all our pitchers the same way mechanically. We teach them what we feel to be the best mechanical approach. Wolforth feels that this cookie cutter approach can often hurt more than help pitchers.

“If I told Andy Pettit that he needed to look more like Roger Clemens at the foot strike position on video because Roger has 7 Cy-Young awards, that would not work for Andy. If you watch a big league game, many pitchers do not throw the same. Pitchers have their own individual style. We as coaches have to do a better job working with them in their style.”

Pitchers often need more work on their pre-pitch routine and ability to stay emotionally in control of themselves than they do mechanical work to help them stay mechanically consistent. Wolforth explains how he teaches his pitchers to pitch from inside out, not from the outside in.

“Pitchers need routine because if they don’t have it, they are at risk of having the circumstances around them dictate how they respond, rather than controlling themselves within the context of the surrounding environment. You have to pitch from inside out because the outside is full of circumstances outside of your control. The chances of things going not well in a game are 100%. If you are thinking about being perfect, that is rarely going to happen. What you need to do is have a routine that allows you to stay within yourself and allows you to stay on track. A routine that allows the chaos going on around you to just be. We need to effect the things that we can control and let the things that we can not go away. That is far easier said than done, believe me.”

Game like practice is critical to preparing pitchers for the ever-changing game environment and Wolforth offers some interesting drills on how to make your bullpens more game like.

“Typically baseball practices are very routine, predictable and stale, while games are the complete opposite. Pitchers often develop practice habits or routines that allow them to get comfortable. Then when they get into a game, they develop an anxiety because it is so different from the consistent and predictable practice environment that they are used to. The pitcher needs to lean that if they can stick to their inner routine, they will be able to handle all the other stuff that is going on around them. At our facility in Houston, we will have pitchers go through their routines as we try to create havoc for them so that they don’t know what is coming. This makes their practice more game like.”

Wolforth feels that a mentally tough pitcher is someone who can make adjustments during a game from pitch to pitch.

“We believe that the determining factor in whither a pitcher will be successful or unsuccessful is simply in his ability to adjust. What does adjustment mean? It means that you have to be emotionally and mentally stable enough to recognize what just happened and then what your adjustments need to be. You also have to be in the present moment. You can’t be in the past or the future, you have to be in the moment. You also have to practice adjusting. The environment whither it be the weather, the umpire, the strike zone, or the field conditions can change from pitch to pitch and you have to be able to make those subtle adjustments to keep you on track. It is like driving down the road and recognizing that you are drifting into the other lane. The bad drivers jerk the wheel to get the car back where it needs to be. Good drivers are always looking down the road and making small, constant minor adjustments to keep them on track. There are a whole bunch of people with great stuff in this game that will never make it because they can not make adjustments on the fly in game time from pitch to pitch and that is a skill that needs to be developed like a good pick play or a curveball.”

Wolforth also stressed that the mental game and the physical game are interwoven and should be viewed as one and the same, not two separate types of practice.

“I am a big fan of Ken Ravizza and have followed his stuff for a long time, and we believe that the mental game can not be separate from the physical game. You have to be working on it all the time. If you ask any of our pitchers they will tell you that the mental game is interwoven into what we do and that any time they throw a baseball they are always working on their mental game.

First Round Mental Training

90 MPH Club

Ron Wolforth