Proprioception is the awareness of your body in space.
When you close your eyes, reach out your finger, and touch the tip of your nose, this is using the sense of proprioception to know instinctively where everything on your body resides. Some people have a poor sense of proprioception, and they end up missing their nose with their fingertip in this exercise. Some people are so in tuned to their bodies that they can point right to the very center of the nose with zero hesitation.
The sense of proprioception can impact the body’s movements, actions, and the sense of its location. In that last regard, I believe proprioception expands beyond the human body, via the mind, which is part of the human body. We all have a sense of society and where we stand within that society. We all know that society can be judgmental, especially if you’re in an elevated position where enough members of society are watching your every movement and action.
Place a pitcher on the mound in the center of a sold out crowd, and tell me that pitcher doesn’t sense his location in the center of thousands of screaming fans. There’s a level of proprioception taking place, where it can be difficult to shut off the sense of being located in the middle of so many people watching your movements and actions. The distraction can take over the mind. This is why only the best performers in any sport, or any other industry that has a stage, can perform well. Their sense of proprioception is so regulated that they can shut off 30,000+ screaming people and maintain their own individual mindset, movements, and actions.
*****
When a crowd boos a performer, it can become more difficult for that performer to turn off their sense of proprioception relative to society. The auditory input of the boos is directed at the player, and we can’t really turn off our sense of hearing. The performer being booed knows they are being booed for something they did, and that can make them start to doubt future movements and actions.
Likewise, when a player knows he’s surrounded in a clubhouse by people who have his back, regardless of the movements or actions, he gets to a more comfortable state where he knows he can be his natural self.
I wrote a column on Tuesday, explaining what a player faces at every level of the minors, all the way to the majors. The biggest obstacle in the jump to the Major Leagues is that sense of proprioception, as the player suddenly is playing in front of tens of thousands of people for the first time, with games broadcast to millions when you consider the highlights. It can be difficult to overcome the pressure which comes from being watched and judged by so many in society. It can be difficult to maintain your own natural movements and actions, in order to play your natural game.
When a player has come up and performed within themselves, there can still be a fear of this all going away. The game of baseball, for example, is littered with a history of players who have performed well for a few seasons, only to never find that level of success again. Some players, like Rick Ankiel the pitcher, hit a point almost overnight where they can’t even throw the ball near the strike zone.
When dealing with performance from human beings, and when that performance is based on emotional regulation and consistent natural movements and actions, the idea of a long period of success can be a fantasy. We watch and marvel at the performance of successful players, but deep down we know that it could all be over in an instant, with the comfort of that player’s production left in the past.
*****
Rowdy Tellez stepped in front of the media on Tuesday, and defended his teammate David Bednar.
Bednar had just blown a save that led to the Pirates losing a game they were previously winning 3-1 in the ninth. This was the third save of the season blown by Bednar, but only the first game of the season that led to a Pirates loss. As Bednar was exiting the field, there were boos.
Tellez stepped in after the game and announced “We don’t do that here.” He praised the career accolades of Bednar, his status as a Pittsburgh-born player, and from that point forward, the story was about Rowdy Tellez, the teammate.
It was a manipulative move that worked. The first person to weigh in on a subject and have their opinion reach the masses is the one who breaks the story. The media approached Bednar to get the story on his struggles. Tellez jumped in before a question could be asked and broke the story. The media members on hand ran with the Tellez story. It didn’t matter from that point what Bednar said.
What Tellez did was distract from a problem. Bednar hasn’t been performing well, and hasn’t been on his normal workload since the start of Spring Training. There are legitimate questions to ask about whether he should be the closer right now, when he’s not himself. Even Tellez, in his defense, said the team was going to get Bednar back on track. That raises a question: Should Bednar be the closer while he’s off track?
The problem with that question is that the closer position has so much pomp and pageantry that it turns into the most dramatic position in the game of baseball. If Bednar closed that game on Tuesday, we could have a debate over who won the game. Was it Edward Olivares hitting two home runs in a 3-1 game? Was it Martin Perez going eight innings with one run allowed? It’s difficult to give a full win to any player in a nine inning game. It’s much easier to attribute a full loss to Bednar, or to know who led to the game going from a win to a loss. The closer position is under a microscope more than any other position in the game. That’s why the closer role is treated as an honor and an achievement.
The problem, in specific, is that you can’t make a move in the closer’s role without controversy from the crowd watching every transaction.
With Bednar struggling in the short-term, the correct thing to do would be to give him a break from the pressure of the closer role. No one would question if he went on the IL to take that break, but it seems out of the question for him to take that break while remaining in the majors.
Why can’t Bednar pitch the eighth inning for a few weeks? Pitchers have a 15-day injured list, but what about a 15-day reduced role? Maybe Bednar approaches this type of rehab with a few middle relief appearances, working up to eighth inning appearances when he’s feeling better, then going back to the ninth inning when he’s back to his natural self.
The reality is that if this happened, and Aroldis Chapman successfully closed every win during that 15-day stretch, there would be questions surrounding the eventual switch back to Bednar. Chapman, if given the closer role beyond that 15-day window, would blow a save or two, and lose a game or two. The reaction would be the same level of disappointment and concern facing Bednar today. If Bednar does the same when he returns, the reaction would be different, with more concern.
I personally think the closer role is not only over-rated, but it is detrimental to winning.
On Monday, the Pirates beat the Tigers 7-4. There was no “Save” recorded in that outing, but that doesn’t change that Chapman saved the game. With the Pirates up 7-2, Josh Fleming allowed a run to score and left the bases loaded with one out in the eighth. With the tying run at the plate, the Pirates turned to Chapman, who came in and struck out two, ending the threat. Ryder Ryan pitched the ninth, with the team up four runs in a non-save situation. Ryan gave up a run, but closed out the win.
Bednar was not used in that win. He would have only been used if Chapman or Fleming gave up one extra run prior to the ninth, or if Ryan ran into bigger trouble in the ninth.
The problem with this approach is that Bednar is one of the best pitchers on the team. He’s struggling right now, but no one should lose sight over the fact that this pitcher combined for a 2.25 ERA in almost 180 innings over the last three seasons, ranking 5th in fWAR among relievers during the 2021-23 stretch. Chapman ranks 58th in that stretch, with a 3.52 ERA in 151 innings.
The Pirates still have one of the best reliever pairs in the game, and it is Bednar who really seals that status. The problem right now is that their best reliever, Bednar, is limited to “save situations” in the ninth inning, working what amounts to a professional wrestler type role of being a “closer”. I think the Pirates would be better off with a closer by committee, ignoring the “save” stat and just going with individual game strategy. Whoever is feeling it that night gets the chance to pitch out of the toughest situation. If Bednar isn’t feeling it, someone else can pitch the ninth. If Bednar is feeling it, maybe there’s a higher stress situation for him to pitch prior to the ninth.
What I do know is that having Bednar in this high-stress role of being limited to save situations is probably not a good thing right now. If he’s not on track — admitted by Tellez in his defense of Bednar, and later admitted by Bednar in his explanation of how he’s not executing his pitches — then he shouldn’t be in the highest pressure situation right now. He shouldn’t be in a position where everyone is watching and breaking down his every movement and action in a situation where anything wrong will be immortalized in the memories of everyone watching as Bednar’s fault.
Tellez was trying to preserve the confidence of his teammate, while showing Bednar that the team is behind him. That’s a good thing, but it ignores that Bednar is legitimately struggling, not himself, and the Pirates have a difficult decision to make of how to handle him right now in his high-pressure, proprioception testing role. There’s ultimately nothing that Tellez or anyone else can say to fix this. There’s only the natural movements and actions of Bednar.
