There’s a moment every year that I can feel in the building.
The heavy winter work is in the rearview mirror.
The long toss has quieted down.
The lifts have done their job.
The bullpens have turned into something sharp, intentional, and alive.
The “fixing” season is over.
Now the competitive season is about to start.
And if you’ve trained at The Florida Baseball ARMory, you know what that means.
You are different now.
Not because you found some magic drill.
Not because you copied somebody else’s delivery.
Not because you chased the right movement and it finally loved you back.
You are different because you earned it. You put in the work when nobody was watching. You committed when it was boring. You showed up when you were tired. You built yourself from the inside out.
Velocity up.
Command tighter.
Secondary pitches sharper.
Body stronger.
Mind calmer.
Different.
So here’s the message I want every one of our athletes to hear as they step into the season:
Your job now is not to search.
Your job now is to trust.
Because the season will try to bait you into panic early.
That’s what seasons do.
They test your trust before they reward your preparation.
The trap that gets even the best players
Let’s talk about the first month.
The first month is where confidence goes to get audited.
You can do everything right and still have a few outings that don’t match what you know you’re capable of. A couple balls don’t find gloves. A couple pitches miss by an inch and get punished. A coach says something sideways. A radar gun reads a tick lower than it did in January. A hitter runs into one. A couple innings get messy.
And then it starts.
The self-interrogation.
The over-analysis.
The late-night video spirals.
The mechanical witch hunt.
The “I’ve got to fix something” itch.
Even when nothing is actually broken.
And here’s the hard truth: the higher your ceiling, the more dangerous this trap becomes, because you have more at stake.
I learned that lesson up close a few years back.
Two MLB prospects, two panicked agents, one weekend that changed everything
A few years ago we had two MLB prospects heading into their draft years, both in their junior seasons.
One good year and they go straight to pro ball.
One good year and they’re millionaires.
One good year and they skyrocket toward the big leagues.
Both of them started their seasons with an unimpressive month.
Not disastrous, just… not what the world expected.
Their agents were panicking. And I get it. When you’re looking at future value, a slow start feels like a financial emergency.
The stress on these two kids was almost unbearable.
Then something happened that I’ll never forget.
On consecutive days, one weekend, they both quietly snuck away from campus, flew back to The ARMory, and asked for a checkup.
No big announcement.
No Instagram post.
Just two guys who had trained their tails off and suddenly didn’t recognize what was showing up on the field.
They didn’t want to admit it out loud, but you could feel it.
“What if something’s wrong?”
“What if I’m losing it?”
“What if this costs me everything?”
We did our thing.
We assessed.
We looked at the training history.
We looked at the throws.
We looked at the data.
We watched how they moved.
We checked what mattered.
Mechanically, they were fine.
But their “stuff” was indeed a tick down.
Not because their bodies forgot how to throw.
Not because their training stopped working.
Not because they suddenly needed a rebuild.
It was something else.
Stress doesn’t just live in your head, it lives in your movement
Psychological stress doesn’t politely stay in your thoughts.
It shows up in your body.
It tightens your breathing.
It changes your timing.
It shortens your intent.
It steals your slack management.
It turns athletic movement into guarded movement.
It makes you try to control the uncontrollable.
And pitching is the worst place to do that.
Because the minute you try to force your way to the outcome, you lose access to the very thing that created the outcome in the first place.
That’s why under stress, guys often say:
“I feel like I’m doing everything right, but it’s just not coming out.”
Exactly.
Because stress changes how you show up.
Not always in obvious ways.
Sometimes it’s subtle.
A little less freedom.
A little less conviction.
A little less “let it rip.”
A little more steering the baseball.
A little more protecting the result.
You don’t need a new mechanical cue.
You need a new target for your attention.
So I sat them down, and we talked.
And what I told them is what I’m telling our players right now.
The most powerful competitive hack is to stop making it about you
I reminded them of something they had temporarily forgotten:
This is the last time you will ever compete with this current group of friends.
This exact group.
The guys you’ve grinded with.
Sweated with.
Bled with.
Cried with.
Celebrated with.
This is it.
After this season, a lot of those teammates will never play a competitive baseball game again. Not because they don’t love the game, but because life moves on. Careers. Families. Different directions.
So I urged them to shift their thinking:
From inward to outward.
From “my success” to “our team.”
From “my future” to “our season.”
From “I have to prove myself” to “I get to pour into these guys.”
I told them to immerse themselves in the joy of one last run with their teammates.
Make the singular goal to win games and help the team build a season for the ages.
A mountain of memories.
One series at a time.
One game at a time.
One inning at a time.
One pitch at a time.
Because when you stop carrying the season like it’s a verdict on your future, your body gets its freedom back.
What happened next is why I’ll tell this story forever
Both guys redirected their focus.
Their teams won their conferences.
They shined.
They made all-conference.
Their stuff returned to prime level.
And the wild part?
They ended up facing each other in a Super Regional.
Then they got drafted.
Then they went on to have outstanding professional careers.
Not because they discovered some secret tweak.
But because they remembered what competitive freedom actually feels like.
They remembered how to trust.
Your “stuff” doesn’t disappear, it gets covered up
If you’re reading this and you’re headed into your season, I want you to hear me clearly:
If the first few weeks don’t look how you expected, don’t panic.
Don’t run from yourself.
Don’t start ripping up everything you built.
Most of the time, what you’re feeling is not a mechanical problem.
It’s an attention problem.
Your training didn’t vanish.
Your velocity didn’t evaporate.
Your command didn’t fall off a cliff overnight.
More often than not, your freedom got covered up by stress.
And stress is loud.
It tries to convince you that everything is fragile.
That you’re one bad outing away from losing it.
That the answer is to grip tighter, think harder, and control more.
That’s the lie.
The truth is simpler:
You built it.
Now trust it.
The ARMory promise: you are never on an island
One of the greatest myths in baseball is that you’re supposed to figure it out alone.
You’re not.
When you train at The Florida Baseball ARMory, you join a family.
That means when you’re rolling, we’re cheering.
And when you hit turbulence, we’re here.
If you’re in-season and you feel the stress creeping in, or you feel like something is off, or you just want an experienced set of eyes to make sure you’re still on track, call us.
Sometimes the best thing in the world is a simple checkup that reminds you:
You’re fine.
You’re ready.
Go play.
And if you’re not local, we built a solution for that too.
Our SAVAGE Satellite program is designed to support you remotely through the season with the same principles we use every day in the building: individualized planning, honest feedback, and steady guidance so you don’t spiral into guesswork when it matters most.
Here’s your season assignment
Before you get consumed by outcomes, I want you to commit to this:
- Make the season about your teammates.
- Make winning the priority.
- Make the memories the mission.
- Trust the work you already did.
And when stress tries to make you shrink inward, do the opposite.
Turn outward.
Pour into your guys.
That’s where freedom lives.
That’s where your best baseball lives.
And if you need us, we’re one call away.
Call The Florida Baseball ARMory at 866-787-4533 to schedule a one-on-one appointment, or ask about joining SAVAGE Satellite so we can support you through the best season of your life.
Randy Sullivan, MPT, CSCS CEO, Florida Baseball ARMory
