Baseball Coaching: How To Motivate Your Players To Rush
Motivation is defined as the driving force to achieve goals.
If you’re very lucky, you’ll have a player who acts as a spark plug and keeps the team up, but don’t forget that even an All-Star player becomes a teammate only if the going gets tough. In fact, it can hurt a team in certain circumstances if players resent the spark.
With that being said, let’s move on to Brass Tacks, team motivation it begins and ends with the Trainer. Period. Your team will assume your personality and mental attitude, so be as prepared to teach attitude as you are to instruct hitting.
Spring training is about more than just learning physical skills, although it’s 90% of that, but you also have to start teaching mental and emotional toughness. Knowing your players is extremely important from all aspects. Observe the reaction of the players as they perform their drills. Some players get angry when they fail, some are embarrassed, some take it as a learning experience and go about their business. You need to make a mental note of how each player reacts so that you can motivate them individually at some point in the season.
ADVICE
You don’t want to raise your voice or raise your fist to motivate a player who’s already so anxious he’s bouncing off the bench walls. This is when an arm around his shoulder and a more gentle monotonous instruction are called for.
“Okay, Johnny, listen. I don’t need a home run. Just make contact. Okay.”
Let’s see what we just did. We calm Johnny down a bit with our soft voice. We let him know that we didn’t expect him to try to outplay himself with a home run. We gave him specific instructions, make contact. He then reaffirms everything with an acknowledgment question that he has to answer.
A player who has shown passive or emotional feelings, anger, when he fails at something requires a different approach.
“Okay, Johnny, this is no different than what you do every practice. In fact, I pitch faster in batting practice than this pitcher. Now go get them.”
What did we achieve? Our voice has more of an authoritative tone, which means we know what we’re talking about and we trust you’re up to the task. We remind you that he has already managed to hit pitched baseballs faster than he is about to hit. A last word of encouragement and a directive to do something.
Managing a team and motivating it is naturally something different than an individual because it deals with several styles of motivation at the same time. This is where it is imperative to make the players a team, they are treated as a team and they will respond as a team.
98% of the time he went to the pitching mound, the entire infield would go to the mound. The first thing I did was ask everyone to take a deep breath to relax a bit, but mainly to give their minds time to calm down and prepare to listen.
No matter the reason for the situation, errors, walks or hits, I made sure they understood that we couldn’t change the situation we were in, we could only react to it. He would then give them specific instructions and remind them that as a “team” they could get out of this bind.
The conversation can go like this.
“Okay, everyone take a deep breath. (Wait) Ok, we got into this situation as a team and we’re going to get out of it as a team. I want everyone to get in on 4 steps. Ground ball…get home. Fly ball.. .help each other.” Looking at my pitcher “We just need strikes.” Looking at my receiver “Good aim now.”
When he left the field he always yelled at the outfielders and indicated with his fingers how many outs there were. That not only made them refocus, but also reinforced the “team” feeling.
There are hundreds of different situations that call for different methods of motivation and thousands of books, videos and other material with advice on how to manage motivation. Reading or listening to these materials can’t do more than help you improve your understanding of how to motivate, but do you really have the time?
The important thing is for you to be aware that motivation is a necessary skill to successfully coach a baseball team and it is your responsibility, as the coach, to set the tone for the team.
Everyone has their own style and mine may sound quite strange or unrealistic to you, and that’s okay. It worked for me, but another route may work much better for you.
I close this segment with this comment:
“The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the best group of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.” babe ruth
