Dr. Skip’s Note
Konnor Griffin was the number one prospect in baseball. Not top-10. The best. Pittsburgh gave him every shot to make the team out of spring training. He hit .171 in 41 at-bats and they sent him down.
That's the moment I want to talk about. Not the failure itself. What came after it. Most athletes don't fall apart in the bad performance. They fall apart in the 48 hours after it, when the story they tell themselves takes over.
Griffin went to Triple-A. Five games later he was back. He doubled in a run on his first MLB at-bat. Then he signed a nine-year, $140 million extension. The reset is a skill. You can build it. Here's how.
THE FRAMEWORK: THE R3 RESET PROTOCOL
The Setup
You just had a bad game. Or a bad week. You're not performing to your level and you know it. The temptation is to spiral or to pretend it didn't happen. Both will cost you.
The Routine
Release. Give yourself a window (24 hours max) to feel the frustration. Write it out, go for a run, talk to someone you trust. Feelings that aren't processed get stuck and show up at the worst times.
Reframe. Ask yourself one question: "What would I need to believe right now to do the work today?" Not why you failed. What you need to believe to compete again.
Recommit. Go back to your process. One practice. One rep. One pitch. Not the whole season. Not what the coaches think. Not the contract. The next pitch.
What I’m seeing
The Griffin Effect. Konnor Griffin went from .171 in spring training to a $140 million extension in a matter of weeks. The talent was always there. What changed was his ability to reset, refocus, and compete in five games at Triple-A. The team saw it. The contract followed. Talent doesn't guarantee anything. What you do right after failure might.
Texas dropped from No. 1. No. 4 Texas Softball hosted No. 2 Oklahoma this week in Austin after dropping three of their last four games and falling from the top ranking. The mental game of a long season hits differently once you've had the ranking and lost it. How a team responds in that moment matters more than how they respond when things are going well.
Mental performance is going mainstream. The Certified Mental Performance Consultant credential earned NCCA reaccreditation in February 2026, and demand for mental performance coaches is rising across all levels of sport. Five years ago, asking for a mental coach was rare. Now teams are hiring for it. The work matters. The field is catching up.
The DEEP DIVE
The Send-Down That Built a $140 Million Player
Konnor Griffin came into 2026 spring training with more pressure on him than most teenagers handle in a lifetime.
He was the number one overall prospect in baseball. Not top-10. Not top-5. Number one. Pittsburgh selected him ninth overall in the 2024 draft. MLB Pipeline had him rated as the best prospect in the game. Every scout, writer, and podcast had an opinion about when he'd arrive and how good he'd be.
He hit .171 in spring training.
He got sent down.
Here's what I know about moments like that, because I've lived versions of them. When the gap between what everyone expects from you and what you're actually doing gets wide enough, something has to give. Either you start playing to quiet the noise, or you start playing for the work itself.
Playing to quiet the noise never works. At any level. The moment your focus shifts from what you're doing to how it looks, you're done. You can't compete from that place.
Griffin got five games in Triple-A. Five. That's not a lot of time to figure anything out. But five games is enough time to either spiral deeper or to lock back in.
He locked back in.
He came back up. First at-bat, he delivered an RBI double. Within days, the Pirates signed him to a nine-year, $140 million extension. A deal that would have never happened if he'd responded to the send-down the way a lot of young athletes do: with excuses, resentment, or a collapse in confidence.
The mental performance lesson isn't complicated. The label "best prospect in baseball" was the problem before it was the solution. Labels create expectations. Expectations create pressure. Pressure, when you haven't trained your mind to handle it, creates exactly the performance you're trying to avoid.
Something shifted in Griffin during those five Triple-A games. I don't know what happened inside his head. But whatever changed, it changed at the identity level. He stopped being the number one prospect who was struggling and became a player who was competing.
That's the actual work. Not motivation. Not a pep talk. The work of separating who you are from how you're currently performing, and going back to the only thing you control: your next pitch.
The best part of Griffin's story isn't the extension. It's those five Triple-A games. Because that's where everything really happened.
Player of the Week
Lexi Vernon - 2026 Grad - Tennessee
Lexi Vernon
Born deaf. Cochlear implants at 19 months old. By 15, one of the top softball recruits in the country.
Lexi Vernon made the USA All-American team and ranked in the Top 20 of the Extra Elite 100 before she played a single day of high school ball. The charity her story inspired, Songs for Sound, has provided over 31,000 people with free hearing services.
She didn't get to the top despite her hearing loss. She got there in a world that wasn't built for her, fighting harder for every opportunity than most athletes will ever have to. Then she used that story to open doors for 31,000 other people.
You don't wait for conditions to get easier. You get better at competing inside the conditions you're in.
FROM THE FIELD
The Amazing Journey of Lexi Vernon (Extra Inning Softball) - The full story on Lexi Vernon: her hearing journey, her rise as a top recruit, and the mission she has become part of. Read this one in full.
Konnor Griffin's MLB Debut: What to Know (ESPN) - The breakdown of Griffin's debut, what scouts see in him, and why the Pirates called him back up after just five Triple-A games.
What We Get Wrong About Stress in Sports Psychology (Frontiers in Psychology, 2026) - A new research piece that challenges the common framing of stress in athletic performance. Useful reading if you coach athletes who are taught to "manage" stress rather than use it.
ONE MORE REP
The reset isn't soft. It's one of the hardest things in baseball.
Train it like you train your mechanics. Build a routine for it before you need it.
Because at some point, you will need it.