Much has been made of Wil Myers and his apparent lack of hustle during certain plays this season: not legging out doubles, lackadaisical defense, and poor performance at the plate have been tossed around Twitter. Many fans are coming to the conclusion that Wil Myers “is who he is”, a .270 hitter good for a 110 OPS+. What hasn’t been discussed until this article is the mental toll baseball takes on a player.
It’s an unfortunate circumstance of our times that mental health is still generally taboo to discuss openly. I imagine it must be even more difficult to discuss in the hyper-competitive baseball world.