A while back, I delivered an inservice for a MLB sports medicine staff, and one of the strength and conditioning interns asked me a question:

“I’m new to baseball. If there was one important reminder you’d give to someone in my position with respect to working with baseball players, what would it be?”

My response:

“You have to emotionally separate yourself from your perception of what makes athletes successful. Often, baseball players are successful because of traits and characteristics as much as they are actual athleticism.”

Think about it…

We’ve seen position players who are phenomenal athletes who didn’t make it to the big leagues because they couldn’t hit breaking balls.

We know of absolutely electric arms who never panned out at higher levels of pro ball because they didn’t have effective secondary offerings to complement their fastballs.

We’ve watched underwhelming physiques hit mammoth homeruns, and we’ve watched bad bodies on the mound dominate hitters because they’ve mastered a knuckleball.

Do you think these absurdly long fingers might be able to learn an elite changeup faster than ones that are, say, six inches shorter?

And, do you think this insanely long middle finger might impact how well he can throw a slider?

Don’t you think this freaky hypermobility might be advantageous for this pitcher to contort his body in all sorts of directions to create deception and get way down the mound?

Hitters with 20/10 vision are going to stand a better chance of making it to the big leagues than those with 20/40.

I’m not saying you should encourage baseball players to be sloppy fat or weak, or to encourage them to avoid stretching or lifting. I’m just telling you that you need to appreciate that every athlete is successful for different reasons. Some of these traits will impact how you train that player, and others won’t matter much at all. Either way, appreciate that baseball players rarely look, run, or jump like chiseled NFL wide receivers. And, more importantly, figure out how to heavily leverage and protect the exact characteristics that make them great.

If you’re interested in learning about how your own unique structural and functional characteristics – and how they relate to your on-field performance and training preparations – I’d strongly encourage you to consider a visit to a Cressey Sports Performance facility to get a thorough evaluation to determine where your deficiencies exist. When you put a video evaluation of pitching/hitting alongside a thorough movement screen, it can be a very powerful combination to unlock hidden potential. For both amateur and professional players, we offer both short-term consultations and the more extensive Elite Baseball Development Summer Collegiate Program (MA) and Pro Experience (FL).