Guardians Clubhouse Leader Confident Team Will Grow From ALCS Loss

Austin Hedges says the Cleveland Guardians know what they need to do to get back to the ALCS next season.

Oct 17, 2024; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Cleveland Guardians catcher Austin Hedges (27) celebrates after a double during the fourth inning against the New York Yankees in game 3 of the American League Championship Series at Progressive Field. Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-Imagn Images / Ken Blaze-Imagn Images

The Cleveland Guardians overachieved throughout the 2024 season. The team left spring training confident that it could be a playoff contender, and it proved that over the next few months and into October.

One reason the Guardians were so close to winning an American League Pennant was Austin Hedges' impact and mentorship on and off the field. While Cleveland came up short this season, Hedges is confident this team will learn and grow from all of the experiences they went through all season.

"When you make it to an ALCS like we did this year, every single guy in here that hasn't been there before now has that experience in their back pocket for the rest of their life," said Hedges.

"And that's - you go into the next year - the guys that haven't been here, you go with an idea of, 'This is how I think we're going to get there.' But it's a 'I think we're going to get there.' Now it's 'We know exactly the roadmap. We know exactly next year what it takes.' And I think this year it started in spring training, now going to the next year, it starts tomorrow."

Hedges continued, "Now we've got a group of guys that knows what it feels like, have been there, that have succeeded and failed. And as much as those successes we had are amazing, the failures that we experienced in the last week are going to help us grow immensely and we're going to get to use that next year. And I think that's probably the coolest part about it."

It's easy to forget that the Guardians were again one of the youngest teams in baseball. With that youth comes inexperience and learning from your mistakes. Now that Cleveland has the experience of going a deep playoff run, they can fuel their motivation this offseason.

Oct 12, 2024; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Cleveland Guardians catcher Austin Hedges (27) and pitcher Emmanuel Clase (48) celebrates defeating the Detroit Tigers during game five of the ALDS for the 2024 MLB Playoffs at Progressive Field. Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-Imagn Images / Ken Blaze-Imagn Images

Hedges is assured that Cleveland's roster will look very similar to what it did at the end of the season and that this group will be hungry to show up and finish what they started.

"The jobs not done. I mean, we got this entire team coming back ... A lot of teams go in and they change personnel year after year, but you can, this is very similar group coming back next year, and I think the Cleveland fans have a lot to look forward to."