In professional sports, the mind plays a big part in success and failure.
Confidence can go a long way, too.
In baseball, hot and cold streaks tend to have a snowball-like effect.
In the specific case of Cleveland Guardians’ shortstop Brayan Rocchio, he let the struggles get to his head in the regular season.
He hit a meager .206 with eight home runs and a .614 OPS for the Guardians last year.
However, he turned around his luck in the postseason, where he went 11-for-33 (.333) with one homer, two doubles, and five walks in 10 games.
He felt like Superman, of course, especially hearing the Guards’ crowd at Progressive Field chant his name and celebrate his key hits.
This year, he is thriving in spring training with a .797 OPS, a .300 batting average, and a .364 OBP.
“The confidence came from the postseason games,” Rocchio told MLB.com this week.
It’s nice to see him building off of last year’s October success.
Of course, it’s not all confidence and swagger.
Rocchio worked hard on his physique during the offseason, and he is hitting the ball harder as a result.
His manager believes he can be much better in 2025 based only on the experiences of last year.
“He’s done it on the biggest stage,” Stephen Vogt said. “Playing shortstop for 150-something games is not easy for anybody to do. There are a lot of learning lessons, a lot of things that he went through last year that he’s going to be able to reflect upon and build off of.
“His postseason success at the plate is definitely something I think that’s going to be a catalyst.”
If Rocchio, a phenomenal fielder at shortstop, can be at least an average hitter (he had a 79 wRC+ in 2024, which means he was 21 percent worse than the league-average batter), he could finally cement his place as the Guardians’ shortstop of the future.
NEXT: MLB Snubs Guardians In Final Preseason Power Rankings
