Introduction: Baseball is a competitive team sport in which athletes must possess not only tactical awareness, physical conditioning, and technical skills, but also psychological competencies that play a crucial role in on-field performance. In competitive situations, players are required to demonstrate focused attention and effective control of power to cope with the high-pressure and fast-paced nature of the game. In recent years, self-talk has been recognized as an effective psychological skill in sport, capable of enhancing attentional direction, motivation, and performance-related focus by modulating an individual’s internal dialogue. This enables athletes to concentrate more effectively on task-relevant cues. Purpose: Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the effects of different self-talk strategies on throwing performance among elite baseball players across various fielding positions. Methods: We sampled 44 players (average age 19.76 ± 1.10 years) of a college baseball team in Taichung City and assigned them to three self-talk situations. Further, we measured their baseball throwing accuracy and distance. We used 3 (self-talk type) 2 (pitchers and fielders) mixed design ANOVA to analyze the raw data. Results: We found there is no difference in baseball throwing distance but there is a significant difference in throwing accuracy. A Post hoc comparison found motivational and instruction self-talk had better effects than irrelevant conversations. Moreover, the pitchers performed better than fielders in distance throwing. Conclusion: It was concluded that the use of self-talk can improve throwing accuracy for college baseball players. Given that prior studies incorporating self-efficacy assessments in the context of self-talk have primarily focused on novice athletes and considering that the participants in this study are elite collegiate baseball players, it is recommended that athletes incorporate self-talk strategies to facilitate training in throwing and pitching control.
