Kyle Wright came into the 2017 MLB Draft as one of the top pitching prospects in the entire country. The expectations were high. The pressure was on early and often. As soon as he made his professional debut in the minors, he started to exceed expectations, becoming a fast riser through the Atlanta Braves minor league system.
A little over a year later, the 22-year-old Wright made his major league debut in 2018. He only pitched six innings, giving up two home runs and six walks. The small sample size didn't cause many to be concerned. In 2019, Wright cracked the opening-day rotation for the Atlanta Braves, and the top prospect was well on his way to reaching his ceiling of being a mid-rotation or better starter.
The competition of the major leagues hit Wright fast. He posted a 7.07 ERA in just three starts and was demoted quickly after cracking the rotation. That is not what you wanted to see from your top pitching prospect. He was called up again in June, only to give up seven earned runs and get sent back down again. He totaled 19.2 innings in seven games in 2019, posting an 8.69 ERA. With his struggles, the first thought that came to everyone's mind was that it had to be performance related.
Wright entered the 2020 COVID-19 season with a lot of the same results. He struggled to find consistency with success in the majors. He bounced up and down from the alternative site to the majors. He flashed many of his same struggles with giving up the long ball and his command. To put even more pressure on him, the Atlanta Braves had a stacked rotation and many other pitching prospects trying to make their way to the majors.
No matter what Wright did, he could not determine what was wrong. Many analysts and experts kept pointing to metrics, data, and performance-related items. Physical components led to some of Wright's struggles, but it wasn't just the physical components. It was the impact they had on him mentally.
In an article by David O'Brien of The Athletic, Wright said, "Oh, 100 percent. Yeah, there were definitely times where that's kind of what it was - I feel like I had lost confidence, and it was really my mechanical (flaws) leading to my mental (ones).
Wright started to work with a mental performance coach when he got optioned in 2020. That's when Wright began to see some results. Getting his confidence back and developing routines helped him focus on improving the mechanical flaws that kept appearing each day.
He started his coming out party in 2020 when he was called back in September and dominated for his last three regular season starts. The combination of work that Wright put in on both the physical and mental side had him trending in the right direction. 2021 rolled around, and Wright just started to dominate the minor leagues. He spent most of the season in AAA, where he posted a 3.02 ERA while striking out 137 batters in 137 innings.
He had his mind in the right place. "I felt like I really got my confidence back at the end of last year," Wright said in an interview with MLB.com. "I took it into the World Series, and then into Spring Training."
That newly trained mindset let him focus on the mechanical issues and physical parts of the game that needed the most help. He could concentrate where his feet were and address the problems at hand one by one. He was primed and ready for the World Series in 2021. That's when everyone started to see this was a different Kyle Wright. The confidence he showed on the mound in the 2021 World Series was something we had never seen before.
Enter 2022. Wright started to showcase himself as a top-tier starting pitcher in the major leagues. He sat at the upper third of the Atlanta Braves rotation all year long and dominated hitters' game in and out. It was a completely different pitcher than we had seen before. His mechanics were in sync. He was throwing more curveballs and painting his fastball in the upper part of the zone. The confidence and bulldog mentality were there on the mound. It was a beautiful sight.
Coming into the playoffs in 2022, Wright talked about what led to his success in the pregame press conference before his game 2 start. "When I was struggling I got to as low as I did, I felt like where I'm at now was forever away and really it wasn't," Wright said. "It was just a couple of tweaks here. Doing some mental work."
Shifting his mindset allowed him to reset. It allowed him to take a step back and focus on the mentality he was bringing to the mound daily. Freeing up his mental capacity from the worries and stress of pitching allowed Wright to hone in on the physical issues he was dealing with and find ways to improve them. It allowed him to develop better routines, ultimately making him a better pitcher.
Overcoming adversity and pressure that comes daily with being a top prospect. There are so many expectations for these players at such a young age that oftentimes it can be one of the drivers for their lack of success at the next level. It can be easy to point to physical issues for lack of performance, but there are many times that physical issues can be caused by an underlying mental performance struggle.
Kyle Wright's story is one of many that highlights the important role mental performance coaches now have in player development. Sometimes all it takes to unlock a player's true physical ability is just a tiny tweak of their mindset.