The Padres Sent Me To A Psychologist To Learn How To Hit

Hey, what's up fellas? How you doing? Matt Antonelli here. Hey, what's going on everyone? So today we're going to talk about the time that I was sent to a psychologist because I was struggling so bad. That's right. They didn't send me to a mental skills coach, which most teams have. They sent me to a psychologist. Matt's brain was so messed up. He couldn't possibly be this bad. He has to go talk to someone that's going to fix his brain. It's not that his swing stinks. No swing can be that bad. That someone can hit 140. Okay. It's his brain. So that's what happened. So let me talk to you a little bit about what a psychologist does to a baseball player that can't swing a baseball bat anymore. So first, before we get into exactly that, let me start off with a mental skills coach because most teams have that. And what typically happens in spring training, a team comes together or the whole organization comes together and they'll sit down with a mental skills coach and the coach will teach you how to breathe properly, which I do think is important. Don't think I'm just kidding around. It is actually important. So they'll teach you how to breathe better. They'll teach you how to relieve or release something bad that just happened. So maybe you just struck out, right? How do you release it? Well, you do take a deep breath. They talk to us about finding a focal point, maybe on your bat. They talk to us about doing something physical, maybe undoing your batting gloves or kicking the dirt or something like that. Okay. So that was mostly what the mental skills coach would do. There's a lot more stuff. I'm just, I don't want to make a 20 minute on mental skills. I actually probably already have. So that's what mostly every team did. I played with five different organizations and I would say every organization had a mental skills coach or multiple mental skills coach because baseball is a mental game and it will drive you crazy. It drove me crazy. And maybe that's why they sent me to a psychologist. So in 2008 I was struggling really, really badly. Uh, if you watch our channel and you know this, I hit well in 2006 I hit amazing in 2007 the greatest year of my life when I was in high a and double a and then I went to triple a and I really struggled. And why did I struggle? We're not going to get into that because I've made that in other videos, but my swing fell apart. Okay. I'll give you the cliff notes version. My swing stunk and it stunk so bad that literally for the first four months of the season I was hitting like one 50 I couldn't believe that they hadn't sent me down. The only reason they did it is because I'm assuming I was the first round pick and I moved up so fast and they thought sending me down would be even worse on my mental state. And so I'm not going to lie. It is not fun to struggle at all. It is probably the toughest thing I had to deal with in my life. When you dedicate everything to playing baseball, it's your only thing you think about 24 seven, not the only thing, but it's probably number one. It shouldn't be number one, but it is number one on, on your mind. And so it is difficult. And um, by the end of my career, man, my, my, uh, my mental state was just, I had had it. And so one of the reasons I stopped playing the other reason I couldn't hit. Um, so in 2008 late in the year, they've tried everything with me. They've tried to tell me to do 42 different things with my swing and none of them seemed to work. And they've talked to me and that didn't seem to work. And they put me on the bench and that didn't seem to work. And so they turned to a psychologist. And so we went to Las Vegas and I said I was going to speak with, I guess the team psychologist and they tried to hypnotize me. Matt, please, you must get hits. Like I, it was very, it was very strange. I remember showing up to the park and they said, you're going to go talk to doctor. I forget his name. And so he took me down like this hallway in the back of the stadium. And we went into this giant room and I was like, what do we, I don't know what we're going to talk about now. I mean, I stink. I can tell you I stink. And so we sat down and he said, close your eyes. And I said, okay. And so we started talking about, um, all kinds of weird things, trying to picture myself in the batter's box on a beautiful blue sky, and he went through this whole thing. And I sat there and I didn't know if I was supposed to like be hypnotized, pretend I'm hypnotized, start walking around the room, sleepwalking style. I didn't know what I had to do. Um, so I just sat there. And then after a while, I, the thing I did most was try not to burst out laughing, laughing. So like holding my lips together probably lasted about, felt like three days, but I think it probably lasted about 15, 20 minutes. And when I came back to earth, he said, how did that feel? And I, I mean, it did feel relaxing. It didn't help me hit it all, but it felt relaxing. I said, I feel pretty good. Doc, I feel, I feel awesome. And, uh, he said, go get them tonight. And he said, just feel, feel calm, but alert. So he said, and I said, okay, I'll do it. And I don't, I probably went over five that night with four strikeouts. I don't remember, but it didn't really do much. It was 15 minutes of peace though, which is good. The other thing that he did, and this actually, I think, you know, I'm, I started this video saying that it was a little weird that I was trying to, they tried to hypnotize me, but I just realized something. Something did actually stick with me from this psychologist and it wasn't that day. But we continued to talk, um, because that clearly that session didn't work. So he still doesn't hit, he's still over five. He did this the last three months. You're hypnotizing a hypnosis or whatever you want to call it. Didn't work. So let's try something else. And so I kept talking to him. And one thing he talked to me about was assertiveness. This is interesting. He made me buy a book. I have it upstairs. It's a red book on assertiveness. I had to go find there's one of those books where there was like seven copies made and somehow I got one of them cause the other six, no one wanted. And, um, but it actually did help. I read the book and one thing I realized, and I talked about this in my videos, he told me that one of the reasons I was struggling is because I wasn't assertive enough because I listened to everybody. Because when anyone told me to do anything, I did it. I was too cooperative. I was, I was too open to everyone. I felt bad telling anyone, no, I felt bad telling anyone I didn't agree with them or I didn't want to do what they were asking. And so, you know, you just start, this guy says, uh, put your hands up here and swing. You say, yes, sir. And then they say, put your hands down here and swing. You say, yes, sir. And then some other guy says, you know, stand on your head and swing. You say, yes, sir. And you just do everything that they say. You don't put any thought into it. And even in, in your head, if you're like, this doesn't feel good, this isn't right. You know, you're not assertive enough to say this doesn't feel good. This does, this isn't right. And so you get lost and I got lost. And if you watch my videos, you know, when I went to Washington a couple of years later, three years later to the nationals, I was assertive and, uh, they hated me over there cause I was assertive. But I do think being assertive actually did help me in Washington. I spoke up for the first time and told the hitting coach. I tried all this stuff before it didn't work. And I said, please let me, you know, can I please just do what feels comfortable and it doesn't work. Then I'll go right back and I'll do anything you say. I felt very proud of myself for saying that. Thank you. Um, to the, to the doctor with the Padres and, uh, and I felt great. And I hit the best I had in a long time that year. But, uh, but the nationals called my agent and said I was uncoachable and I didn't want to listen. I didn't want to take any advice. And so maybe I was a little too assertive, but I do think I needed to be more assertive and I've tried to continue that in life. It is very hard for me to be assertive. I, I, I don't know if you want to call me a people pleaser, but I don't like making people upset. I want to keep people happy. And so, but sometimes I need to be a little bit more assertive. So anyways, that's what happened with my psychologist. They tried to hypnotize me. It didn't really work. I still stunk and it wasn't until I made swing changes that finally it helped me. I'm not saying psychologists don't work. I'm sure they helped plenty of people just didn't help me swing a baseball bat because my swing stunk. Okay. My brain did stink a little bit too, but the swing stinking was causing my brain to stink. Okay. Anyways, that's what it is. Let me know if you have any questions in the comment section below, subscribe to the channel, hit the notification bell, give it a thumbs up, all that good stuff. We'll talk to you later.