2025 Cleveland Guardians Prospect Scouting Report: #1 2B Travis Bazzana

How soon will Bazzana be ready for the majors, and will his approach and defense translate enough to be a potential All-Star or just a good everyday regular?

Travis Bazzana Bio

• Age (2025 season): 22

• Acquired: 2024 Draft (1st Round)

• 2024 Level: High-A

• Height: 6’0

• Weight: 199

• Bats: Left

• Throws: Right

First Impression

Compact, physically maxed athlete with good twitchy-traits. Relentless motor on and off the field with the personality to match on and off camera. Impact offensive tools. Potential All-Star.

2025 Scouting Grades

• Hit: 60

• Power: 55

• Speed: 60

• Defense: 45

• Arm: 45

• Overall: 60

• Risk: Moderate

• ETA: 2026

What Makes Bazzana Fun

What’s more exciting about Bazzana? His actual impact offensive tools themselves or the fact that Cleveland hasn’t had an offensive prospect of Bazzana’s ilk in some time, that it enhances your anticipation (and expectations)? And who in the US doesn’t enjoy an Australian accent? Prospects are fun because they haven’t failed yet and it’s still possible to believe they will reach and even exceed expectation. The last time Cleveland in general has had a prospect that had the hype and potential to actually match the hype on the field might have been LeBron James? Bazzana has that LeBron mentality to winning and work ethic to get there. As far as on the field, Bazzana is a little active in the box in tightly wound, squared stance with a flatter bat setup. He’s explosive through his load and swing. His ability to create vertical barrel angles in his swing without sacrificing contact is impressive. He can hit line drives and fly balls to his pull side enough to tap into above average power despite not having top of the scale exit velocities. He’s able to do this in part by good pitch selection and understanding which pitches he can drive and taking pitches he can’t, rather than sacrificing for the sake of making contact because he can, unless he gets to two strikes. So his two strike approach is also good. He’s a plus runner out of the box with a great motor, enough to squeak out infield hits that can drive his batting average and also give him extra bases and steals. His work ethic and character also count as plus and make him just as fun.

What Could Hold Bazzana Back?

Even though he’s a position player, there’s still no such thing as a perfect prospect. There is a little a concern about passivity at the plate, We saw this in college in his swing rate and that carried over into the pros. That at times might cause him to strike out. He has a good eye at the plate and always feels like he knows the zone and what is a strike and what he can or cannot drive. Defensively, Bazzana doesn’t quite move in the field like you would expect from a quick twitch athlete with speed. The actions don’t quite match that for some reason that is hard to peg. Bazzana’s arm is a bit fringe in terms of strength and accuracy sometimes. Improving his throwing angles will be something to watch for so he can make throws going to his right. Perhaps the only two flaws you can find are some general passivity and some slight lack of defensive value.

Key Metric

38.8% - Bazzana’s swing rate, which seems low. But in context, this is a very similar rate to Carlos Santana, whose career low was 36.7% in 2015 (a down year for him offensively but still a 107 wRC+). His swing rate has hovered 40% most of his career, so that feels like some kind of comparison. And I would also assume Bazzana’s swing rate may go up as he moves up levels when pitchers are around the zone with better control and command. His 80.4% contact rate also seemed a tad low to me given what contact skills we hear and see from him. And I tend to believe contact rates would go down as you move up levels because the pitching gets better. That could still be true. But I looked at players from 2024 who had similar contact rates in the majors and came back with Marcus Semien, who at age 21 in High-A had a 67% contact rate, and Corbin Carroll, who has some similar offensive skills to Bazzana, only ran a 75% contact rate in Double-A. Now both are in the 80% range in the majors. Perhaps contact rate is not always a skill that goes down as you move up levels, but it could be the same as swing rates, where you see more pitches in the zone, but that also must go hand in hand with swinging at good pitches and not chasing, which Bazzana is possibly elite at if it’s not ALL passivity. So perhaps there is a lesson I need to learn about contact rates as players move up levels from this, or if it’s only something good hitters can manage and I think Bazzana is just one of them either way.

Intangibles

High performer in the Cape Cod League (MVP) and college. Kobe Bryant level of work ethic and determination (without the off-the-court allegations). And it’s not just working hard, it’s working hard and what is smart. Bazzana famously had a good sophomore year and worked on improving his swing to get to more power and put himself from a surefire first rounder to a top 3 pick guaranteed by the end of his junior year. He wants to win, learn from the best. He’s a good teammate at encouraging his teammates but also holding them accountable. Personable off the field and in front of the camera. It’s the picture of someone you want as the face of a franchise.

Future

There were definitely times last year where you saw Bazzana still trying to settle in and was a little late on pitches and caught in between in his swing, trying to figure out the pro strike zone and umpires and pitchers. Confidence isn’t an issue for Bazzana and he should be able to settle in a little easier in his first full pro season in 2025. That doesn’t mean there won’t be hiccups, and in fact, a few might be good since Bazzana has rarely failed in his baseball career. Part of the minor leagues is weeding out the guys who cannot handle failure for the first time and bouncing back from it. Passivity and defense are probably the two areas that will determine Bazzana’s level of overall success and how quickly he can run through the minor leagues. If all goes well, he could challenge the Guardians to turn over second base to him by late August/September. If not, Cleveland could opt to give him the whole year in the minors and work toward a ROY of the candidacy for 2026 and get a draft pick. But the floor is high enough here for at the very least, an average everyday regular. If second base doesn’t work, there are skills and work ethic here to succeed in possibly left or center field. 20/20 type player with OBP skills and speed, and the ceiling of an occasional All-Star.

Role/Risk

60/Moderate - Impact offensive performer at second base with fringe/passable defense and occasional All-Star.