If a Hollywood writer turned in a script that chronicled Jake Bauers’s journey to becoming the MVP of the 2026 NLCS, it would be sent back for being too unrealistic.
Bauers led the Milwaukee Brewers to an improbable sweep of the two-time reigning champion Los Angeles Dodgers. Along the way, he had two marathon at-bats that resulted in home runs — and his double and bases-loaded walk helped rally the Brewers from a 4-0 deficit in the deciding game of the series to secure the National League pennant.
It’s crazy, but two years before, Bauers was on the verge of quitting baseball.
What changed? Let’s go to the start of the story first to find out.
Bauers was drafted out of Marina High School by the San Diego Padres in the 7th Round of the 2013 MLB draft and bounced around seven organizations over a decade before being traded by the New York Yankees to the Brewers in November of 2023. He hit 202 for the Yankees that season, followed by an even more anemic .199 for the Brewers in 2024.
Frustrated with his performance, Bauers set his mind on retiring and being a stay-at-home dad while his wife Lauren returned to teaching. He told The Athletic, “I was pretty dead-set (on retiring). You go through enough in this game, and that thought pops up in your head more than one time. It could have changed as the offseason went on. But in that moment, I was dead-set on it.”
However, days after deciding that this was probably the end of his baseball career, Lauren told him that she was pregnant with their second child. Bauers’s decision to stick it out with baseball can be appreciated by most average Americans; their family needed the health insurance.
Bauers pulled back out his spikes and returned to the Brewers. Somewhere along the way, a new Jake emerged. He slowly got better, improving each season, and it all culminated with a playoff performance for the ages. This is the story of Bauers’s mindset transformation.
Chapter 1: Greater Purpose
The news that a second child was on the way provided Bauers a focus that went beyond himself. In the interview with The Athletic, he said, “It was like, all right, we have two kids now, more mouths to feed. We’re going to have to keep going.”
When you take the focus off your personal woes and make it about playing for others, such as family, friends, or community, you are given the motivation that helps you push through the tough moments and develop the grit to carry on. Knowing that you have a family that is counting on you provides a much stronger mental reserve than just serving your own ego.
Chapter 2: Choose Confidence
Ok, so you take the focus off yourself and make the determination that you will keep grinding and not give up because you want to give your family the best of what you’ve got. That’s fine, but what if you keep falling short and don’t have the belief that you can get over the hump and start seeing some success?
That is exactly where Bauers found himself when he made the decision to keep playing. Yahoo Sports quoted Bauers as saying, “I came into this year feeling like there was really only one person holding me back, and that was myself.”
So, what did Bauers do to gain some confidence after struggling for so long? It was actually a pretty simple answer. In a postgame interview on Fox Sports after the Brewers clinched the series, David Ortiz asked Bauers where his confidence came from. Bauers replied, “Somewhere along the way I just chose it. I think I’ve been through a lot in this game, doubted myself a ton and somewhere along the way I just let it go. I chose to be confident. I chose to believe in myself.”
Is it that simple, just choose to be confident? Not exactly, but it can be a choice. On a GameChange podcast, performance mindset coach Dr. Michael Brown provided his theory about choosing to be confident that tellingly links to Bauers’s decision to keep trying for his family.
Brown stated, “I’m choosing to stay here because that was the commitment that I made. Because that’s the tie, if you learn to honor your commitments and not see confidence as something outside of you, but a series of choices to actually cultivate something inside of you, then you will experience, I think, true confidence.”
So, what are those series of choices? Keep reading.
Chapter 3: Accept the Outcome
Oftentimes the greatest pressure we feel comes from within because we are so emotionally attached to getting the specific outcome that we desire. No baseball player steps up to the plate wanting to strike out, but it happens. This is exactly the point that Bauers made in his post-game interview with Fox Sports.
Derek Jeter asked Bauers about keeping his comfort level when he had two strikes, especially facing some of the best pitchers in baseball. He added that Bauers looked really calm at the plate. Bauers explained why. “I’ve accepted that I’m going to strike out sometimes. I’ve accepted that I’m not going to come through sometimes, and I think if you’re gripping it too tight, if you’re trying too hard, you’re going to chase pitches. You’re not going to get the job done.”
In scientific circles, Bauers’s point about accepting that he might strike out is often referred to as outcome detachment. This attitude helps you perform better because it takes away the paralysis that fear of failure often brings and helps keep you calm in high-pressure situations.
Chapter 4: Stay Present
This idea of not being attached to the outcome is also linked to the important principle of staying focused on the task at hand. Bauers learned this when the failures were mounting. He explained in Yahoo Sports, “I think what changed for me this year was I stopped caring about results.” He added, “I started caring about being in the moment and getting out of my own way.”
It goes both ways. It is easy to get bogged down in a rut during a slump, but there is also the danger of being so caught up in your successes that you take your eye off the ball the next time you play. This is precisely the point that Bauers made when asked by Alex Rodriguez on Fox Sports about the excitement of winning the MVP award. Bauers responded, “This feels great, this feels awesome, but we’ve got bigger dreams, and I’m just trying to stay focused the best I can until there’s not a game left to play.”
Being present creates the mental clarity to perform at the highest levels by eliminating distractions or overthinking the task at hand. It reduces stress and increases the speed of your reaction time because you are more tuned in to subtle real-time cues that are easily missed when not being fully focused.
Chapter 5: Trust the Flow
One of the biggest mistakes that many players in all sports make is that they try to force the action. You can see it in basketball where a player might hoist an ill-advised three-point shot with a defender in his face – or, in football, a quarterback trying to make a hero pass into double coverage that results in an interception.
When asked by David Ortiz where his confidence was coming from, Bauers replied, “It’s really about letting the game come to me as much as I can and just meeting it where I can.”
This trust of letting the game come to you is also a principle that can be followed when the struggle to perform leads you to overthinking your technique instead of getting into the flow of the game and just playing. Bauers explained his approach to The Athletic. “I felt like I’ve cycled through every mechanical possibility. When is enough going to be enough? When are you just going to go play?”
At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about. It’s only a game. Just go play and have fun. The results that come from that approach might surprise you. Just ask Jake.
