You are a baseball player sitting in a clubhouse, surrounded by other baseball players. Your team bus arrived in some Podunk town about an hour ago. You’re vaguely aware of the manager speaking in front of the room. You think he said something about the opposing catcher’s arm. Your phone vibrates, and you spend two minutes discretely scrolling through Instagram.
Now the hitting coach is talking. He said something about a curveball, maybe? There are a few ants on the floor crawling around. Everybody laughs for some reason, and you laugh too, though you have no idea why.
The coach calls your name. Everyone is staring at you; it’s clear he just asked you a question. Instead of answering, you make a joke about the coach’s age. The rest of the team cracks up, and the coach picks on someone else.
Later that evening, you’re sitting at your locker. You went 0-4 with two strikeouts. You swung and missed at the curveball on an 0-2 count. The one time you managed to get on base, the catcher with the laser arm gunned you down on a stolen base attempt, killing a rally. The manager chews you out for not paying attention in meetings. The hitting coach says you might get sent down, or worse — cut, if you can’t follow directions.
Coaching as teaching
MLB organizations spend countless hours and dollars researching baseball, attempting to gain strategic advantages. There was a time when bunting a runner over was practically mandatory; now we know that decreases run expectancy (Lou Gehrig recorded 97 sacrifices from 1925-1930). Teams know which hitters struggle with breaking pitches and which ones can’t catch up to high fastballs— not just from advanced scouting but through using data. Research and innovation have led to mechanical breakthroughs for pitching mechanics, batter swings, and defensive positioning. The result is a smarter, faster style of baseball.
However, there are still only nine players on the field, plus the batter and baserunners. With all the intelligence gained since the sabermetrics boom of the last 20 years or so, the players still control the game. None of the advances in game theory, mechanics, or scouting make a difference if the players don’t implement them.
Because of this, the role of coaches as teachers is critical. It’s up to the coaching staff to convey information to ballplayers that will make them more successful. If they fail, the team might lose a game or two, which does matter (more at college or high school levels than minor leagues). More critically, a failed connection between a coach and player can stall that player’s development.
If a pitcher doesn’t understand why a recommended change in release point can help, he might not fully embrace it. Even worse, through miscommunication or a lack of understanding, he might not understand what the coach is trying to convey in the first place. In this situation, all the research leading to the suggested change goes for naught.
The player might be deemed, “uncoachable,” and his career stalls.
Players as learners
The story above depicting a player in a pregame meeting might sound familiar to you, even if you never played baseball. Perhaps you’ve sat in a meeting at your own job in which someone is just talking at you, and you had a hard time focusing. You probably have some classroom experience like this at some point in your educational career.
Anyone who’s ever sat through a lecture can attest that it’s not the best way to learn. In full disclosure, I don’t have access to any clubhouses and I don’t know the extent to which coaches actually do this. Even in a more individualized setting, such as batting practice or in the video room, there can unseen barriers for players to receive coaching.
The most obvious barrier is language. Speaking a different language than the coaches is certainly NOT a learning disability, but it’s definitely an impediment to communication.
When Gabe Kapler worked for the Dodgers as the farm director, he mandated that every minor league team in the organization have a Spanish-speaking coach. This is one of those “Duh!” moves that frankly should’ve happened a long time ago. Hopefully, all other organizations have followed suit.
Learning disabilities can also be a significant barrier. If there is a diagnosable reason why a player struggles to accept coaching, organizations should do everything they can to accommodate.
Learning disabilities in baseball
Here are two common misconceptions about learning disabilities:
- All learning disabilities are severe
- Only children usually have learning disabilities
According to the National Center for Learning Disabilities, “One in five children in the U.S. have learning and attention issues such as dyslexia and ADHD, but as noted in the new State of Learning Disabilities: Understanding the 1 in 5 (www.ncld.org/StateofLD), 48 percent of parents believe incorrectly that children will outgrow these brain-based difficulties, and 33 percent of educators say that sometimes what people call a learning disability is really just laziness.”
Statistically, there are likely a handful of players on every baseball team— from tee ball to the major leagues— with a learning disability. If organizations aren’t recognizing this and adjusting their coaching accordingly, there can be a detrimental effect on the team, the player, and the organization as a whole.
Here is a partial list of common learning disabilities of which teams should be aware:
- Dyslexia and dyscalculia: Most people have some awareness of dyslexia, but there’s a lot they probably don’t know. Dyslexia is a combination of symptoms that make it difficult to interpret language. It could manifest in a number of different ways that people wouldn’t normally attribute to language difficulties. Dyscalculia is similar but for math, including numbers and symbols. Often (but not always), people with dyslexia may also have dyscalculia. If you’re a reader of Beyond the Box Score, you know that math plays a large role in baseball these days. A player with dyscalculia might have trouble interpreting something like this:
Simply handing players a scouting report and telling them to read it might not work. If they have dyslexia or dyscalculia, they could benefit from a verbal discussion or looking at video.
- Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD): ADD and ADHD (H for hyperactivity) are also commonly known and often misunderstood learning disorders. It could be difficult for these players to fully engage in group instruction or complete tasks. They will absolutely have a hard time sitting through a meeting to go over scouting reports. They might do better in a one-on-one coaching session, and may increase focus when paired with movement, such as in the batting cage.
- Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI): TBI is probably the most understood type of learning disability in modern sports. We’re learning more and more about concussions all the time. Every brain injury and concussion is different, and their effects can vary. Teams should be cognizant of not just the physical symptoms (blurred vision, headaches, etc.), but the cognitive symptoms as well.
- Auditory or visual processing disorders: You may have taken a quiz at some point to find your “learning style.” Some of this is junk science, but people definitely do have preferred ways of interpreting new information. Taking this a step further, some learners have diagnosed auditory or visual processing disorders. This does NOT mean they need a hearing aid or glasses. They might hear or see just fine, but struggle to interpret auditory or visual input. If teams know which of their players fall into these categories, they can adjust coaching accordingly based on how the player learns best.
Small change, big difference
Houston Astros rookie right-hander Josh James throws 102 miles per hour, but he didn’t always do that. His story is well-known at this point: a roommate heard him snoring, he was diagnosed and treated for sleep apnea, and his velocity exploded. Obviously, sleep apnea isn’t a learning disability, but it shows how a simple, seemingly unrelated change can have a huge difference on a baseball player.
Every team at any level probably has a few players who just aren’t connecting with the coaching staff. Odds are, some of them have a learning disability that is either undiagnosed or untreated. If a team appropriately modifies instruction and accommodates for the player’s learning needs, they could unlock potential that they would otherwise never realize.
Isn’t that what player development is all about? It’s nearly impossible for a team to succeed without a strong player development model. An origination that best figures out how to reach their players as learners could have a significant advantage over their opponents. There could be huge benefits for the players as well.
Daniel R. Epstein is an elementary special education teacher and president of the Somerset County Education Association. In addition to BtBS, he writes at www.OffTheBenchBaseball.com. Tweets @depstein1983