Mind over batter: Royals praise history-making mental skills coach

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) — As the Kansas City Royals warmed up for their home game against the Guardians last month, there was a woman in the outfield shooting the breeze with them. Last season, she became the first of her kind.

Melissa Lambert is the first woman and the first licensed mental health provider to be in an on-field role with Major League Baseball. She isn’t a typical counselor with a couch. She’s more like a coach with a laid-back approach.

“She’s not pushy at all,” said pitcher Alec Marsh. “That’s what’s so good about her. She’s there if you need her.”

First baseman Vinnie Pasquantino broke down her approach.

“It’s not like, ‘How’s your swing feeling?’ or ‘How do you feel in the field?’ It’s more so like, ‘Hey, how are you doing?’” he explained. “What she brings to the table is almost more of a personal aspect.”

Lambert’s title is a mouthful: director of Behavioral Science/Major League Mental Performance. Mental skills coaching for performance isn’t new. Lambert did that for the Dodgers before coming to the Royals in 2020. What is new is having a licensed therapist embedded with the team. She’s seen a difference.

“You get to know these guys on an individual level really, really well,” Lambert explained. “So, it’s easier to pick up on when things aren’t going well or there’s a behavior change or you notice something that that’s different.”

A LOT OF PRESSURE

There’s a lot of pressure on any pro athlete. Fans can be rough, especially online.

“When you go home or you’ve had a tough game and you get death threats in your inbox, she’s good at helping you realize a lot of that stuff’s not real,” said Pasquantino.

Really? Death threats?

Pasquantino chuckled, at ease with the topic.

“It depends on how you play,” he answered. “But we kind of asked for this life, and having Melissa around really helps with that aspect because she’s really good at putting things into perspective.”

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Lambert says the guys are pretty good at keeping boundaries with social media. Some hire someone to manage most of it. She hopes fans take a minute to realize they are human beings too, but she also keeps it real with players.

“You have to remind players that, hey, you’re also an entertainer, like you’re providing this big social outlet for a lot of people that kind of live and die by sports,” Lambert said. “They have no idea what goes on in the day-to-day, in the sacrifices.”

There are aspects to baseball that make the pressure even more present than in other sports. For one, they’ve got 162 games in a season. That’s a lot of chances of failure.

“You’re not going to be performing at your best the whole 162 games,” said second baseman Adam Frazier, who has not leaned on her much but knows others who do.

But it’s more than that.

“There’s a lot of downtime in baseball, a lot of downtime, and so it’s easy to be in your head and kind of replay situations,” explained Lambert.

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That’s particularly the case pitchers compared to position players.

“The at-bats happen. They get four a game, or more. It’s like, I got the next one still,” Marsh reasoned. “Whereas if you’re a starting pitcher, you’ve got to bat out and you’ve got to wait five days to go back out there. And sometimes that can weigh heavily on you for sure.”

“Other sports, I think, have a little bit more of the luxury of, we just keep it moving. You don’t have time to think about it,” Lambert continued.

GETTING IN THE SWING

Lambert began her Major League role last season after starting in an assistant director role for the Royals four years ago. Then, she was primarily focused on the Minor Leagues. She acknowledged she had a bit of a learning curve when she began her new role.

“Especially as a female and being in the psych role, you almost have a little bit of that imposter syndrome that comes in, like, ‘Can I do this and provide what these guys need?’” she said.

Lambert started her psychology career working with youth in schools. It took a lot out of her. She was an athlete herself. Soccer was her sport.

“Learning the Major League model, understanding the business aspect of it, and then the pressure on their day-to-day while also traveling and living that lifestyle, you’re kind of learning on the go,” she said.

The embedded model has helped her to understand what they face living so long on the road. It gives her credibility. She’s enjoying the learn-as-you-go approach, partly because she’s not the only one who’s new to the team.

“Because we have a young team, a lot of them are new at it too, so we are growing and learning and doing it together,” Lambert said.

MENTAL HEALTH VS. MENTAL PERFORMANCE

Lambert wants to be clear about her role. She’s not a mental health counselor for the team.

In her definition, mental health counseling is for problems that get in the way of day-to-day functioning. Mental performance coaching is about developing skills to be in the right head space to perform at your best. It includes psychological concepts like “arousal regulation,” which provides tools for energizing, motivating, relaxing and being mentally prepared.

Her main role is in mental performance, providing individually to players and coaches and overseeing the mental performance program.

Some of that goes hand in hand with mental health. That’s another reason she’s there. She’s a team employee but her background as a licensed therapist legally protects the confidentiality of information that is not directly related to their work on the field. In the mental health sphere, she’s there to recognize if there’s a problem, mitigate risk and act as a bridge to mental health counseling off-site if needed before it becomes a crisis.

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