POWER hitters or GOOD hitters? part 3
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=== #3 Timothy Gallwey Dept. ===
Sports psychology is all about --- > convincing yourself that you can win.
Put me in the back yard, playing 3-on-3 with the local junior high kids, and I've got no problem shooting 80%, 90%. The positive visualization is absolute and it is more than skin deep.
However, put me in a strange YMCA in Tacoma, playing against the brothers, and if I miss my first couple, I might shoot 3-for-21. Why is that? They're the same shots.
Fear of failure, self-doubt, embarrassment.
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MLB players will tell you that the physical size of the players in batting practice plays into it. I remember quotes from the late-80's M's that they felt sheepish, chatting pregame, standing next to McGwire and Canseco and Stewart and all those guys...
Bring you a bunch of banjo-hitting Endy Chavezes to the O.K. Corral in Texas, and their pitchers are going to figure out real quick that you can't hurt them. They're going to smirk as you walk away, and you just can't play through that for 162 games.
You might want to listen to Baker, learn something from him, rather than dismissing him out of hand. When he tells you that the Angels and Rangers took liberties with the M's lineup in June, maybe he saw something out there.
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The 1H 2011 Mariner offense was painful to watch. Have you ever seen a baseball offense more Pathetic (literally) then the one that tried to support Felix, Pineda, Bedard, and Fister?
That problem has been solved. Ackley, and Carp, and in 2012 Smoak, will rain lefty pain back unto the tormentors.
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Power hitters are necessary on a sabermetric level, because the power hitters are (generally) the good hitters. But they're also necessary on a psychological level. MLB(TM) is about swagger, about looking the other team in the eye and staring them down.
Watch a game sometime. The "Staredown" factor is there, every ballgame.
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