As hitters, I think we take for granted at times how good our hands are and just how much the value of truly getting the barrel to the ball is. We don't have to do as much as we think we have to.

There's a fine line between playing through things and sitting out. I was always on the side of, 'I'm going to play through it.' It's probably good at times, bad at times, but for an athlete to always try to be there and play through things, from a teammate's perspective, it speaks volumes. Now that I look back, mentally it makes you tougher.

I think you start hitting home runs, and you start getting caught up in seeing how far you can hit them. They're fun, but you really only have to hit them a foot over the fence. They all count the same.

You're going to fail. It's how you respond to that failure that kind of defines you as a person, as an athlete.