By Rob Rains
It probably is one of the more predictable realities of the current sports world.
When a baseball team’s offense struggles to score runs, as has happened to the Cardinals this season, log on to any social media platform after a game and you will quickly find a series of negative posts – whether it is on Twitter, Facebook or in an Internet chat room.
Many of the comments will be similar, built around a common theme – it’s time to kick the hitting coach to the curb.
Even though John Mabry has not taken an at-bat this season, has never swung and missed a pitch, has not stood and watched a called third strike go by, or popped out on the first pitch, he is the target for the majority of the criticism from fans because of his position as the Cardinals’ hitting coach.
Mabry understands that, and he also is realistic enough to know the criticism comes with the job, just as blame for any loss is directed at the manager, in this case Mike Matheny.
It’s a poor reflection of society, however, that negative critics are more vocal than people who want to praise somebody. If the Cardinals score 10 runs or see one of their players come through with a game-winning hit, a visit to those same social media platforms is not likely going to find a similar number of posts praising Mabry, or any other hitting coach for that matter.
When the team goes through a stretch as it has lately, however, scoring two runs or less in 10 of their last 22 games, those negative critics are making a lot of noise.
Mabry isn’t looking for praise, but he does not deserve so much criticism, either.
“You aren’t looking for any of that; you are just trying to do your job,” Mabry said. “If you worry about the process, the other stuff is going to take care of itself. If you worry about the stuff you can’t control, you will be out of the game in a short while. This game is built on failure. That’s the truth of it.”
How does he ignore all of his critics?
“You just do it,” Mabry said. “You don’t stick around in this game for a long time if you don’t. You understand what’s important and what’s not important. You just do what you can every day to help people. … When you coach you are serving other folks. You are gearing your whole deal on what other folks need.”
Having that attitude has helped Mabry stick around, despite his critics. This is his sixth season as the hitting coach of the Cardinals after working as the assistant to Mark McGwire in 2012.
Before beginning his coaching career, Mabry spent 13 years playing in the majors, including two different stints with the Cardinals. A lot has changed about the game since his playing career ended in 2007, but he knows the basic philosophies about hitting – the ones he learned from George Kissell and others in the Cardinals’ farm system – have remained the same.
“The game is about executing, is it the pitcher or the hitter?” Mabry said. “Who’s controlling the at-bats? Who is getting ahead? It changes every day. There’s a lot of luck involved. These guys are throwing 97 miles an hour every day. It’s tough; people don’t realize that.”
Good hitters make the job look easy, no matter how hard a pitcher is throwing. Even the best in the game, however, are going to average getting hits three times out of every 10 at-bats.
It’s Mabry’s job, along with assistant hitting coach Bill Mueller, to try to maximize the potential of every hitter on the team, trying to eliminate as many mistakes as possible in their hitting approach and increase their chances of success.
The work is endless; for a typical 7:15 p.m. game, Mabry will get to the ballpark around 11 a.m. He goes over video of his own hitters and the opposing pitchers. By the middle of the series against the Royals this week, he already was studying pitchers on the Pirates for this weekend’s series in Pittsburgh and preparing game plans for his hitters.
"I wish people could see how much work goes into what these guys do,” Matheny said, “…. care, effort, knowledge, ability to communicate. At least internally we know how much they are helping our players.”
Mabry recently saw Marcell Ozuna go through a career-long streak of 22 at-bats without a hit, then collect five hits in his next two games. Matt Carpenter’s average was at .140 before a hot streak for a week pushed his average to .210. Tommy Pham has been one of the team’s hottest hitters all season, but now is in an 0-for-14 streak which includes nine strikeouts.
“You live and die with them,” Mabry said. “You just want them to be happy and productive and get the most out of what they are doing.
“The game is built on failure. You are always trying to offer solutions. … It’s not all sugar and roses at times. You’ve got to grind through patches. Anybody who is in this game long enough is going to struggle; it’s part of the game. You deal with it and you move on.”
One of Mabry’s strengths is that he preaches patience and confidence to his hitters. He sees the big picture, the fact it is a 162-game season and even if an individual hitter, or a collective team, struggles for a stretch there are still a lot of games left to play and a lot of time for a hitter to get hot.
“The game has slumps in it, that’s part of the deal,” he said. “If you are going to base your assessment on somebody for a short while, you’re not going to be a baseball fan for too long.
“There are small victories every day, getting guys through stuff, keeping people in line for what they want to do and what they want to accomplish. When things look bad or are not going their way you have enough confidence in what’s going on that they are going to turn it around and be where they want to be at the end of the season.”
The evolution in the game, with the constant shifting of defenses, with the emphasis on launch angle, and the ever-increasing use of video technology and analytics, really has not changed the way Mabry teaches. The old philosophies, the ones he learned from Kissell, still apply, even if they have to be modified.
“We change stuff all the time with everybody,’ Mabry said. “Everybody is always looking for something. It’s a game of adjustments. Sometimes things don’t work out as fast as you would like.
“All of the information is here and available, it’s what you as a player want to take advantage of; you have to see what can help you, how simple you can make it for yourself.”
Follow Rob Rains on Twitter @RobRains
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