Derin McMains. Courtesy San Francisco Giants
Derin McMains knew it could be too much. The Giants have a very much hands-on manager, who frequently checks in on players. They have 13 coaches under Gabe Kapler, minds who want to ensure their pupils are taken care of.
There are only so many, “You doing OK?” texts to send. The line between caring and overbearing can be difficult to straddle. Like chocolate chips in brownies, sweet can become too sweet.
“Early on, we all had to talk and say, ‘Hey, we’re all reaching out all the time and almost connecting too much with [the players],’” McMains, the Giants’ mental-skills coach, said on a Thursday phone call. “‘Let’s give them space to kind of wrap their heads around what’s going on a little bit.’”
The coronavirus pandemic is testing the nation — and its baseball teams, and its baseball players and its baseball coaches — in an unprecedented manner, literally separating a tight-knit group and examining how well they can work and stay in physical and mental shape apart from one another.
For McMains and the three-person mental-skills department, they have been removed from the familiar comforts of the clubhouse, where they can evaluate performance and see in real time how players are doing, and been forced to try to keep focuses trained from afar.
A franchise that has proven digitally adept has introduced what McMains calls “psychoeducational” videos. As well as distributing articles they think will foster development, each Thursday the mental-skills department messages these videos meant to keep eyes straight.
“We’re teaching about the concepts of what successful thought patterns or successful thinking patterns look like. Other athletes tend to be the best barometer,” said McMains, in his 17th season total with the franchise but second as director of mental skills. “The one we’re sending out today has a J.J. Watt interview on there coupled with a Tiger Woods interview from when he won his first Masters. And then bookended with the most recent Masters he won, and then Jerry Rice is in there, too.
“The message is: How can we be greater than yesterday? And have a mastery-focused mindset where we don’t have results really right now, but can we get locked in on our process and locked in on our preparation and still compete against ourselves? We talk a lot about you versus you and you versus yourself yesterday.”
The videos, ranging from a minute and a half to three and a half minutes, which also have starred decathlete Ashton Eaton, aim to keep the Giants in a frame of mind that will keep pushing them to improve. So much of spring training pitted players against one another, believing competition would yield the best results. There were rivals next to you, and there was a finish line — or perhaps starting line — of Opening Day to look toward.
Both of those have been removed during the COVID-19 freeze that does not come with a timetable. McMains’ job, as well as ensuring wellness, entails making sure players will be ready whenever Major League Baseball gets the go-ahead to begin play again.
Baseball players and coaches are regiment-based, relying on strict daily routines that shape the players and coaches and people they become. McMains said a few staff members and players have struggled through the downtime, notably a few who are parents. They are finally home with their families for an extended period with a different line of duties but also must be prepared for whenever the season dawns.
“At first it was almost like, ‘Oh, hey, I got an extra week or two at home,’” relayed McMains, who spent from 2001-07 in the Giants minor league system. “So they felt like, ‘This is great, I get to be around my kids more and, when they’re in school, I get to go home. But now it’s shifted to more like, ‘Oh, wow, this was harder than I thought it was going to be.’”
For the overwhelmed, or for the injured who already were facing struggles, McMains has recommended books to get through difficult times. To a few he’s endorsed James Clears’ “Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones.”
The thinking is easy to understand for a group so dependent upon structure. If they can build their own system in this new ecosystem, they can stay physically and mentally ready.
McMains sees it in himself, as well.
“Now that I’m home more, I go to the pantry more. Now that I go to the pantry more, we have these dark chocolates that are at eye level for me, but they’re above the level of what our kids can see,” said a sheltering-at-home-in-Arizona McMains. “I found myself in the first few days just crushing dark chocolates. … So I had to move those to the very top level of our pantry so I don’t even see them anymore.
“It’s just about understanding how our environment influences our habits.”
The ultimate test of a difficult environment to succeed in could arrive next month, as Major League Baseball eyes Arizona for another spring training before a quarantined season — or at least start to a season — that may not include the players’ families. For McMains and the Giants, the tests will not get easier.
About a week ago, the team’s staff had a Zoom call with Will Clark and asked him about the 1989 World Series, in which an earthquake became far more important than a game. The Giants legend spoke of resuming play instilling, if for only a few hours, a sense of normalcy again.
“Ours is not going to be a World Series and there’s not going to be people in the stands and we are going to be really hot and potentially be away from our families a lot,” McMains said of the proposed plan. “So, there’s definitely a lot of challenges along the way.
“I think it’s going to be up to us to be able to really try to refocus, change their perspective on how good it is for the country. Gives people something to watch, gives people something to invest in, invest their energy in, and hopefully gives them something to smile about. I think that’s probably the biggest thing for me. … I say this all the time, but it’s like when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”