The Science and Remedy for the "Yips"

The Science and Remedy for the "Yips" 

Steve Blass after his Pirates got the last out to win the 1971 World Series.

"If you took a normal person, nonathlete, and you gave him a big leaguer's physical ability for a day and put him on a mound for a game, it wouldn't matter what big leaguer's ability he had. The mental side would crush him." - Trevor Bauer

If you have played the game of baseball long enough, you have known someone or even experienced a phenomenon know as the "yips." The "yips" means that someone loses the ability to throw a baseball. It is a strange event, that often frustrates the athlete, and even frustrates his teammates and coaches. Some cases happen for a few minutes, and others seem to last longer and ruin careers. 

One example is Pittsburgh Pirate legend Steve Blass. Blass had a great Major League career. He even pitched game seven of the 1971 World Series, where his Buccos would win against the Baltimore Orioles. Everything seemed to be going well for Blass. Two years later, Blass would have a terrible case of the yips. In 1973, Blass's ERA climbed to 9.85. Blass would walk 84 batters in 88 and two-thirds innings. Blass would only strike out 27 batters. Blass's career would only last two more seasons, which unfortunately would be in the Minor Leagues. Blass's case of the yips would get a name called, "Steve Blass Disease." Blass couldn't figure out what contributed to this sudden loss of control, but he has said that he has no regrets with his career, where he won 100 games. Blass is currently in his 60th and final season in the Pirates organization. Retiring from a successful career behind the microphone as a broadcaster for the Buccos. 

The "yips" or "Steve Blass Disease" has claimed many Major Leaguers. Most notably Rick Ankiel, who turned his whole career around by becoming a position player. Despite many players not knowing what caused this phenomenon from happening and hurting their careers, perhaps there is some understanding to be learned about this issue. In 1976, Robert Nideffer wrote a piece on athletic performance. This piece would be called "Theory of Attentional and Personal Style." This piece became a sort of Punnett Square for the mental side of performance. Nideffer found that there are four kinds of mindsets. These mindsets are: narrow-internal, broad-internal, narrow-external, and broad-external. Internal focus means that the athlete is focusing about their movement. This can be harmful to pitching. Broad focus means that the athlete is aware of his surroundings. The ideal focus was to have narrow-external focus. Narrow external focus has one's attention focused outside oneself and focused on completing a task. 

Having narrow-external focus is crucial for many players to perform during a game. Let's think about it, when we are play at our best we all have had a narrow-external focus. We are trusting our training and just competing. A perfect example would be Dallas-Baptist's Batting Practice. During Batting Practice, the coaches told the Dallas-Baptist players to simply hit the ball up the middle. That was their only cue given. Each player had to have a narrow-external focus to have success. The by-product of this kind of practice allowed for Dallas-Baptist to lead all of NCAA Division I in power categories statistically in 2018.

Now, let's go back to a big league story about how a player cured his mild case of the yips. Josh Tomlin was really struggling with the Cleveland Indians. His struggles became so prominent that he reached out to Trevor Bauer. One game in late July, Tomlin asked Bauer what he saw. Bauer commented, that all Tomlin was focusing on was his mechanics, to the point where he thought Tomlin looked robotic. The next day, Tomlin and Bauer went out to do their daily routines. After they long-tossed, Bauer took Tomlin to the shortstop position. He told Tomlin to try to throw fastballs and curveballs while turning a double play. The idea was to get Tomlin's mind off of mechanics and just have a narrow-external focus. After Tomlin did this drill and a few other drills, it cleared everything up for him. When Tomlin rejoined the Indians in the second half of the season, he pitched 0.84 walks per 9 innings. 

This isn't the only drill that Bauer has used. In the offseason, Bauer trains at Driveline. At Driveline, they play mini-games, where narrow-external focus is practiced. One kind of drill has trainer Kyle Boddy throw a large ball in the air. When Boddy yells, "Go!" Bauer who has his back turned, turns around, locates the ball, and throw his ball to hit the larger ball. This allows Bauer to not focus on his mechanics, and focus on completing a task and trusting himself.  In summation, the key to curing the yips is to have the athlete get out of his own head. To have the athlete focus on the task and trust himself. As coaches let's think about it. we want our players to just play and focus on completing the play and not worry about their mechanics. If the players have an overly-mechanical focus, then they will not be successful. For remedies of the yips, play mini-games and have the players practice on having a narrow-external focus. If this is done regularly, your team will completely trust their abilities on the field when the umpire calls out, "Play ball!"