Clubhouse Chemistry

Nice!!

I am in absolute agreement with you on clubhouse chemistry and I feel like I can tie team success very directly to years with really good chemistry in our sons' own baseball career.

Interesting.  When kids are being scouted and grinding through the minors their character (short of legal problems) is not a big issue.

When you get 35 grown men sharing space they must care about each other for anything productive to happen.  This is not any kind of revelation.  Every army in the world since the Greeks realized that soldiers fight for the guy to their left and right. 

I hate military and sports analogies because sports are not war.  But in this case the notion of small units succeeding because they trust and respect each other and will make any effort to pick each other up is valid.  I would contend that its relevance is limited to players that do have something left to offer to the team on the field. 

Also being able to put a team together and know who fits is not an exact science.  In Baseball it is the largest contribution of the manager to be able to communicate expectations, create a positive environment, make good decisions and ultimately earn the players trust that can make a difference.  It is why guys like LaRussa, Torre, Lasorda and Bochy have had such long careers.

As for the numbers guys stinking.  Theo killed the Boston curse and looks to be on his way to killing the Cubs curse too.  He ran Nomar out of Boston to make it Manny and Ortiz' team and brought Maddon and solid professional vets to the Cubs to lead the way for their kids.  I think he gets the whole picture. 

Lonnie Wheeler, the author of the Henry Aaron book "I got a Hammer" also wrote INTANGIBALL"!   The GM making trades for the right chemistry.

This is the 6th Tool. Can College coaches find this tool in one day camps or showcases?

How to recognize? How to ask the right questions?

Bob

Prepster,

Thank you for the post and the link.  Being an avid Giants' fan, seeing what Sabean and Bochy and different groups (but some strong constants) have accomplished since 2010, and being a strong believer that the clubhouse makes a difference over 162 games made the article even more enjoyable.

My personal perspective is chemistry and leadership can often be even more important in college baseball, as justbaseball noted and I expect your son has experienced, both as a player and college coach.  Clearly, when teams win, they have talent. What we don't often understand as a parent or fan, but good coaches do, is when talented teams under-perform their talent level.

Bochy is very unique. Even now as the Giants have Pence, Panik, and Pagan on the DL and are playing Milb guys at short and 2nd due to injury situations, Bochy is so calm during games and with the press.  However, he is quite articulate in the business side that someone has to pick up the pieces and produce, and more often than not they do.  What Maddon is doing with the Cubs this year is another wonderful example!

Great topic.

I believe that clubhouse chemistry wins games, and championships.

I posted this before, but Kevin O'Sullivan told me once that the most important part of being the head recruiter is putting all of the parts together, harmoniously.  So true.

Lots of talent all in one place at one time doesnt always mean success. I think one of the reasons you always see the same teams, both college and mlb that are in the running are that way because there has been an extreme amount of care in finding the right guys that compliment each other.  Those winning program usually have the best recruiters. 

This becomes a slippery slope in recruiting. While your son may be extremely talented, he may not fit into what the coach feels will be his role, could be a good reason why the coach suddenly is not as intentive as he was.  Dont take it personally, thats why you and your son also need to find tje right fit.

Thanks for posting this article and best of luck to Coach Woodard and Vtech ( except against the orange and purple).

Love the topic. Clubhouse chemistry or any positive chemistry in sports, business,  marriage and life in general is what it is all about IMHO.  Every team I've ever been on since I was 6 years old, through high school, college athletics, coaching youth baseball and through my business career was about chemistry and talent in that order.   I watched my oldest son's college team achieve something the program had never done before and it was because of chemistry first and talent second.  It is difficult to explain but easy to feel it when you experience it.  

Talent does matter.  You have to have it to be competitive but a team with less than its opponent can overcome the difference when the lesser players find a way to play to the level of their opponent or the good players raise their level even if it is only for one game or series. 

My favorite examples of this was the 1980 Olympic Hockey team.  There were great players on that team.  A number of them had great professional careers but for those two weeks in February something special happened that was a year in the making.  They did something that was above their actual talent level. 

It is far and away the most memorable sports event in my lifetime.  It was a truly awesome thing.  

Many good posts above.

Son's HS team had more talent on paper (except at 2 positions) the prior 2 years though had short playoff runs each year.

This past spring a less star studded roster had a challenging road,

played some great HS teams with 'better' rosters on paper throughout the playoffs

{except at those 2 positions who had great seasons}

however son's team won the State Championship,

the consensus is in large part to chemistry,

all pulled together,

captains inspired & led, firing up the team, giving speeches that were followed by almost  'Miracle' & 'Remember the Titans' level moments)

they all liked each other,

admittedly some kids played 'over their head ' in key spots too (which was great to see & gave them/their families lifetime memories)

and they won.

No question, you need Talent/stars for sure to win at any level,

in this case Chemistry was a Huge plus factor.

is chemistry a projectable skill? pretty sure coaches will have to stumble onto it or create from within.

I think you can look for certain characteristics.  For example, since most kids that move past HS are going to be the star or one of the top players on their team I'd watch for stuff like how they react when the 8 hitter K's with a runner on 3rd and 1 out when they are down by one in the 3rd.

Are they rolling their eyes/or shaking their heads etc. or do they give you something "alright pick him up Danny"  Does the team take their queue from him. 

The flip side of this is does he care how his teammates are doing and that he cares about the W.  Is he paying attention and actively pulling for them or is he chatting with his buddy with his back to the game.

Both kind of obvious examples and when all else fails - ask his coach. 

I would still say though that this is the managers real territory.  Every organization takes its personality from the leadership.  If he wants the game played a certain way and demands it and rewards those that perform by putting them on the field it will come.  Good or bad.

Absolute great topic

I sure believe in team chemistry. It is very powerful!  I think most people and players do.  It is something that is hard to explain and sometimes difficult to build.  Sometimes it just happens. Definitely starts at the top.

The best explanation I can come up with involves two words... Comfort and Enjoyment. Players that are uncomfortable simply don't perform their best.  Players that are uncomfortable don't enjoy their experience as much.  When the "team" isn't winning or a player isn't performing is the time chemistry or lack of it becomes most important.  For the most part, those player that are the most comfortable and most enjoy what they are doing, tend to perform at a higher level.  It is a game packed with individual pressure, adding more pressure off the field is counter productive.

Chemistry and Makeup are both hard to explain, but they are partners. Anyone who has ever played or coached knows that their are certain people who have the ability to make others better.  You can't always put a finger on it, but it does happen. There are other people that cause the opposite to happen.  No matter how talented one player might be, no matter how well he performs, he is not enough by himself. Guess this is not just a baseball thing, it's an every day life thing. It involves business, it involves recreation, it involves everything we do.  We all want to be happy.  So life becomes easier when you have good neighbors rather than bad neighbors.  The game becomes easier when players are happy. Are we happier when we are around people we like or people we dislike?

When your best players are also the ones you most enjoy being around and most comfortable to be around, both on and off the field... That is true leadership and creates real chemistry.   There are several like that, but one that stands out for me is Buster Posey. Another is Eric Hosmer, Posey and Hosmer are very different personalities, yet they both add so much to their teams chemistry.  I think they were born with that trait.   Also, there are some players that have long careers despite compiling poor statistics. The teams they play on just seem to win a lot.  They make others perform better by just being around.  Then there are some very talented players that create just the opposite effect, but I would never want to mention any names. 

One last thing, I think the thing that makes chemistry so difficult to describe is because just like talent, team chemistry is not enough all by itself.  History has proven that teams have won it all despite having players who made everyone uncomfortable.  So winning alone is not the result of team chemistry in every case.  Winning alone is not the result of having the most talent in every case.   Winning is something that can help create team chemistry, though.   Everyone wants to win!

Today, Pedro talks about team chemistry.

During George's years as President of the Yankees, he directed negative comments to himself. This provided the players a "outlet" for their frustrations. Finley did the same with the Oakland A's in the 1970's.

We we travel International to Japan, Korea, Australia I search for the 6th Tool.

Bob

Observations on Chemistry/Team players:

• First out of the dugout when anyone scores for a fist bump/high five
• Waiting by dugout after anyone makes a good play to pat on back
• Taking time to fist bump a player who broke a slump
• Sincerely giving credit to others when you are interviewed
• (in turn getting mentioned by others when they are interviewed)
• Obviously enjoying being on the field, including practice and pre-game
• First on field, last off field/out of dugout

Baseball is very much a mental game.  Every batter makes outs.  Every batter goes thru slumps.  Every pitcher has a bad outing or two.  Every fielder makes an error.  The list can go on and on.  How a player responds to these things will determine how he moves on from them.  I think every baseball player above rec league is competitive.  The higher up the chain you go, the more competitive those players are.  So, most players are pretty hard on themselves when they don't come thru in the clutch, or give up the winning run, or make an error in a critical situation.  How those around them respond to that failure, has a big impact on how that player bounces back.  I think that is a BIG part of team chemistry.  The whole team is concerned about their friends on the team.  The whole team wants to help an individual player bounce back from adversity or celebrate in their big moments.  When the whole team wants what is best for the team and wants to pick up their teammates and are sincerely happy for their friend when they come thru big, that is what makes a team gel.

What makes for bad team chemistry, I think, is when too many guys are just out for themselves.  They have a streak in them that makes them inwardly happy when a teammate makes a mistake, because it gives them a better chance to play or maybe makes them look better.  Or are inwardly irked when a teammate comes thru with a big hit, because it wasn't him.  There are selfish players like this out there.  When a team has too many, it produces bad chemistry.

This is my son's 4th year in college ball.  I have seen 3 kids kicked off the team for something other than being academically ineligible.  One was for off field problems along with an attitude problem (lazy, late to practices, etc..).  One was because coach wanted him to be a PO and he pushed the coach too hard during his exit interview about wanting to be a two way guy.  Coach got tired of hearing it and told him to pack up.  The 3rd was a pretty good player, but when I asked my son as well as a bunch of other guys on the team why he was cut, every one of them said he was not a team player.  He was even one of my son's better friends, but he still said he wasn't a team player.  Apparently, the kid sat around talking about how much better he was than the guys that were on the field.  Not being supportive, putting others down to make himself look better, etc...  It was not the kind of guy they wanted on the team.

I think the teams that over perform because they have good chemistry do that because they are so good at picking each other up and being sincerely happy for the accomplishments of their teammates.  And all their teammates are their friends and brothers.  It makes it a lot easier to get thru the tough times and a lot more fun when things are going good.

An interesting topic. Just dropped off our son 2 weeks ago to college. A hard transition for him, he's in the school's honors college which is more work, and hopes to try out as a walk on, but like everywhere else, the competition at this d3 is stiff.

   Team chemistry can change year to year, but is also influenced by coaching staff. Son came from a nonathletic family (no team sports background, so totally ignorant of the culture, importance of summer travel teams, recruiting process,etc.) so with no summer travel ball experience he was behind the 8-ball from the beginning. freshman year in high school was first time he ever played on school team (grade school too small to field a team), had a blast, came along quickly. Soph year, had a minor injury and was benched the remainder of the year for holding himself out of a game (at my request, big mistake). As a result, he was left behind on JV junior year which nearly axed his chances for senior year. At this point, chemistry and positions largely set on V team. He worked to get on summer team with no luck we missed deadlines, rosters are also largely set in stone by this age) so did private coaching, etc.

   School coach told him he wasn't really good enough to play V. So son went through the winter batting program again, came out top hitter in his group (2 groups, they shut him out of the V group, told him no room for him there). Even with this, coach said he'd likely not play. Through the practice leading up to season, there were a few incidents where he was targeted for ridicule/belittling by other players on the team (the dominant ones), and after one instance of lip service to "respect", the coach's treatment of son did nothing but make him an easy target for more of same. He was not supported by any of the dominant players except one, which made the season miserable for him. He received no coaching from staff, was delegating to shagging balls for the other players at practice, etc. He stuck it out, I don't know how, rather than allow the coach to say he'd quit. Son was even shot down in front of entire team for simply saying to coach he hoped he'd get a chance to play that game. Why? Other players stronger, but many more years playing time behind them. Son had excellent momentum, but not the support of his coach. And so, neither did he enjoy any support from his team mates.

   This past summer, he did land a spot on a 22U team, one of the best in the region (they had no 18U team to offer). He played on this, had the support of his team mates, got playing time and can always improve, but his coach confirmed to him he has certainly has potential for college playing.

   I may not know for many years why son had to go thru the bad experience in high school,with the sport he loves so much, but his personal courage in facing what he did, and his tenacity kept him there. Nothing we could do about the coach, I just wish he'd had the support of his team mates. He was about the only one on the roster taking AP classes, and as such wasn't in the same classes as the rest of the players, didn't spend time with them as a result, and doubtless this had something to do with it - the coach scheduled 4 games for the week of AP exams end of year, including a double header the night before 2 tests. He found fault with son for skipping the games to study for the exams. 

   Son started going to the college team practices, to get ready for tryouts, so we'll see where it all goes. There have been several life lessons learned through this sport, just wish they'd had a happier outcome for son. Sorry for the long post - it's been a long journey to here. Not intended to be a rant, but yes - team mate support means everything in baseball. I'm thankful son's always been a supportive team mate, hopefully we raised him right.