R.J. Anderson writes about Chris Archer‘s embrace of mindfulness. I’m all for having a positive attitude and visualization. The sub-headline implies that Archer is using this technique to improve in 2017 as compared to 2017, but:

“Chris discovered the book when he was just coming out of Triple-A, and the book had a profound impact on him,” the Arizona-based Falco told CBS Sports. A few social media exchanges later, and Archer and Falco unearthed a nifty coincidence. “[We] realized that a week later, or like, within three days, they had an interleague game with the Diamondbacks out here in Arizona, and ironically (or serendipitously) he also had a night off. So, we met for dinner and we established a friendship and a relationship regarding work.”

So his practice of mindfulness didn’t stop the 2016 fall. The article does get down to a big reason Archer is doing better this season:

His most noticeable tweak has been a simple one to his pitch selection. He’s now using his devastating slider 45 percent of the time — or five percentage points more than his previous career-high, which was set last season. The resulting effect has been that he’s throwing about half and half fastballs and sliders against righties. Archer is less balanced against lefties, but only barely — he’s thrown 46 percent fastballs and 40 percent sliders.

That seems like a lot of sliders. Zack Greinke, at one point in his career, started to feel pain when throwing a lot of sliders, so he decided to save the pitch for when he really needed an out. I hope Archer does not end up hurt from throwing the pitch too much.