Ryan Theriot to the St. Louis Cardinals

“I am finally on the right side of the Cubs-Cardinals rivalry.”

A continuing theme that I would like to emphasize in this entry, is the St. Louis Cardinals organization’s decision to seek high character players.

In the game of baseball, you can have all the tools, but if you lack the most important, your career will amount to nothing. Without the “mental game,” a professional career will be short lived, if ever lived at all. At some point, all baseball players must understand the fact that they are going to fail.

Baseball players will roughly fail at the plate seventy percent of the time. Understanding that your going to fail is a concept that determines what level of baseball you will be able to play. The younger you accept this thought of failure, the better baseball player you will become.

All over youth baseball today, you see coaches punishing their players for striking out, flying out, etc. What these coaches are failing do, is to teach what is wrong with the players “approach.” With an approach, you have aspects of preparation, concentration, and knowing the situation. Some coaches with handling failure will make a player/team perform physical tasks so they do not repeat mistakes. Other coaches, will use verbal methods of being “tough” to make the players fear failure. But now and again, you find a coach that tries to find a way to connect with his players through true communication. And by true communication, you are making sure the player understands to the fullest extent based on development, that the approach is where the game plays out.

If the player is eight years old, you have to be very simplistic and funny, with other characteristics of communication in mind, to make sure you will be able retain his comprehension of what is being coached. This style of communication changes with every age group, but some coaches cannot see this, or simply cannot find this channel of communication and give up, then they state, “I cannot get through to my players.”

Now, one might start to understand why a player does not fully comprehend failure in the game of baseball. And this might be from youth baseball teaching that failure is a negative outcome of the game. And with this, if one is to observe the game of Ryan Theriot, the fear of failure does not exist.

As all great careers begin, Ryan Theriot’s numbers show that he had the mental game at a young age to push beyond the threats of failure. Theriot had only 14 strikeouts in his high school career. Further, his true-freshmen year at LSU, Theriot was the leadoff hitter for 45 of the 66 games. His seasonal batting average was .322 with 55 runs and 13 steals. The championship season of 2000 for the LSU Tigers, was Theriot’s sophomore year of play. He started all sixty-nine games at shortstop and finished the season with a batting average of .305, with a team best of 68 runs, and had 57 walks in a total of 69 games. If these numbers were not enough to show what a solid mental game Ryan Theriot posses, he was named to the College World Series all-tournament team going 16 for 42, .381, with 11 runs and 3 walks. Oh and by the way, his fielding average was perfect. The following season he was voted by his teammates as team captain. 

Only with his collegiate experience one can conclude, that Ryan Theriot understands the game of baseball. Perhaps, coming from a professional organization that does not understand, caused his knowledge to be blurred. But this knowledge of the game is something you cannot lose; it is a piece of awareness that may tarnish when not in use. Another marvelous off-season deal managed by John Mozeliak.

Excerpts from Ryan Theriot’s interview on 101.1 ESPN radio, “The Fast Lane”

“I think the trick is… There is one thing we would talk about was going to Omaha and winning the College World Series everyday. Was not about going to play proball or getting to the big leagues or anything like that. It was just getting to Omaha. How are we going to get there, and how are we going to win the College World Series?”

“I think that stayed at the forefront of everybody’s minds… and it’s almost like that’s the only reason your playing. You’re not looking for anything else except for that. Wasn’t about the money…”

I think Theriot might have an understanding of TEAM me. Do you?

Lance Berkman to the Cards

“He’s a winning player, he brings tremendous leadership and respect to the club house. I think he has a great appreciation for the game of baseball and for the history of it… He looks at the St. Louis Cardinals as one of the premier places to put on a uniform.”

Before explaining anything else about the acquisition of the Lance Berkman, John Mozeliak speaks about a baseball player’s mental game. The Big Puma is here, and his role will have a large influence on the success or failure of the 2011 season.

J-Mo states, that Lance has “a great appreciation for the game…” This statement alone shows the great weight of responsibility that is being placed upon Berkman’s shoulders. To have an appreciation for the game, you have a certain passion that is hard to fulfill. You understand the positive and negative events that occur over the course of a season, and you know how to find a balance. This point of mental equilibrium is what the 2010 St. Louis Cardinals collectively could not find.

The mainstream media is all over Berkman’s past injuries, worried that he will not be able to play everyday. Well, The Big Puma will not play everyday. But he will play the bulk of the season but it will be around 120 games. This will allow younger outfielders to get some at bats and allow player development at the major league level. If the Cardinals can stay generally healthy through the dog days of summer, Berkman will be able to sit and rest for when his bat will be in highest demand, in the divisional race, or series.

But you then ask, well isn’t 8 million for one year a bit expensive for this type of role? There is no price limit that can be set on an active player to come into a younger organization to share his theories of the game. Colby Rasmus will understand this on the first day of spring training.

Throughout my blogs, I will not base my entries upon stats. This method of writing about baseball is over done. It simply makes me dizzy. It takes the rhythm of the game out of focus. With the current methods of T.V. broadcasting, and the mass amount of numbers available on the Internet, if you want stats, go find them.

If you are looking for a clear, crisp point of view for the St. Louis Cardinals organization you have found a great read. With reading this blog over the course of the 2011 season, you might be able to find the flow of the game. And with finding this flow, you will be one step closer to fully understanding what it means to have “a great appreciation for the game of baseball…”