Why the Brayan Rocchio experiment should be nearing its end for the Guardians

At one point in time, Brayan Rocchio was viewed future of the Cleveland Guardians' middle infield.

The 24-year-old shortstop came into the 2025 campaign with high expectations, and, for the first time in his career, entered the year as biggest long-term piece in the middle infield. He had a legitimate chance to lock down the position for years.

Instead, this year has featured a mix of inconsistencies and frustration from the play of Rocchio.

He's slashing .229/.284/.323 across 70 games this year, which is a suboptimal batting average and on-base percentage. He's struck out 46 times this year compared to 11 walks and has hit just one home run.

It seems like those kind of numbers are becoming the norm for Rocchio.

Rocchio entered the year with a .213/.295/.317 slashline across 166 major league games. The Guardians already made one decision about Rocchio when they sent him to Triple-A earlier this year. At a certain point, the Guardians may just want to get out of the Rocchio business.

While Rocchio is still a solid defender and has handled the move to second base well, his solid glove work can only go so far. This is a far too familiar theme for Guardians fans given they spent the past two years experiencing the exact same thing with Andrés Giménez.

At some point, the Guardians have to start prioritizing getting a look at some other prospects along with giving more opportunities to Daniel Schneemann and Ángel Martínez.

Schneemann has been a reliable bat for the Guardians this season, and has hit .346 across eight July games with nine hits, two doubles and home run.

He also has flashed the leather well, making highlight-reel worthy plays across the infield. He can also play seemingly everywhere across the diamond.

Martínez has also shown flashes in a season where he seems to finally be finding himself in the batter's box.

The 23-year-old native of the Dominican Republic has the highest batting average of the three (.236), along with 20 doubles, 10 home runs and 40 RBI. While he has an extreme strikeout rate and is being set up for failure in the outfield, he's delivered in big spots, including a grand slam in an extra innings win against the Astros in early July.

Both players have provided a spark the Guardians desperately needed from their middle infield. Schneeman and Martínez aren't just filling in — they're proving they should be infield staples.

The Guardians have a decision to make with Rocchio.

The safest move for them to make may be to send him back to Columbus for an extended stay that would give him a chance to get consistent reps and not worry about battling for a starting position. This move also would give Schneemann and Martínez as much of a runway as possible.

A bolder option is to trade him while he still has some value. He was highly touted as a prospect, and could be the classic "change of scenery"-type player.

Either way, Cleveland can't keep running Rocchio, Schneemann and Martínez out there every day.

One of them has to go, and it's pretty obvious that it should be Rocchio.