His problems were between his ears. His stuff was fine. He always made excuses and now he is claiming his struggles were from pain while pitching.
At least Redding made the majors... and had somewhat of a career. Even if Appel’s problems are all mental... that’s a huge part of the game. Maybe he could get with Framber’s psychologist that turned him into a Cy young candidate.
Why every team does not have a sports psychologist or 2, majors and minors, these days is baffling to me. Chris Holt was the first I remember with the Stros...had good but not great stuff, could have pitched in the league for 15 years...folded constantly at the first sign of trouble. I now feel bad for playing armchair fan brainshrinker, we as fans never know what's actually going on with people we admire at a distance.
There have been guys through the years that have failed at the mental part of the game.... some of it was medically diagnosed and some of it was personality and some guys didn't care. Tim Redding is the one that comes to mind, but at the time I know most of the coaches and people around him believed he had a major attitude problem and would not listen to anyone to improve. I still remember when he told a prominent Astros coach to "**** off" when he wanted to work with him. Martes is another guy that just did not want to listen to coaching and it has derailed his career...... Mark Prior was known as really, really soft with the Cubs. He did not want any influence or opinion from the Cubs and he would not pitch unless his mechanics were 100% right, and then when he had them the way he wanted, he would still try to tinker with them.... destroyed what could have been a HOF career.
Dusty sure does get blamed a lot for damaging Wood and Prior. Not sure how much too believe in that but I do wonder how successful they would have been if healthy
Dusty arguably deserved some blame for Kerry Wood because he would let Wood pitch as long as he wanted regardless of pitch count. However Wood also would not tell the Cubs when he was hurt, his arm was swollen constantly.... also Wood got injured after his rookie year and was never the same. He lost movement on his pitches after that. Prior just wouldn't pitch unless he felt perfect and even then he was more concerned about working on his mechanics than actually facing live hitting.
Ok. For me, when a guy pisses away his talent by being an uncoachable prick, I find that incredibly sad. To each good own. Hernandez, though. Man, if he'd never slid into 2nd... Bummer.
haha, agree. Just making a jab. Tim Redding situation is a bit sad even if self-inflicted...I just feel worse for situations like Hernandez where it wasn’t their own undoing.
True that. Man, end of 2001 was such a buzz kill. Heading into the playoffs with Oswalt, Miller, and Hernandez we were going to DESTROY! Then we lost two of them for the playoffs, Hernandez was never the same again, and Miller's mechanics eventually made his arm fall off. :-(
