Scott Bandura Is Ready For a Bigger Stage

Out of all 323 players who attended last week’s MLB Draft Combine, I was only familiar with a few before setting foot in Arizona. I’d watched highlights of a few high school prospects, caught several college players on TV. But the first player at the combine I’d seen in person was neither an all-SEC player nor a high school showcase monster, but a junior outfielder from Princeton University named Scott Bandura.

If you were aware of baseball and had basic cable in the summer of 2014, you’ve probably seen him play too.

One of my first big trips as a young reporter was to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, in 2014. There I witnessed the biggest media circus of any Little League World Series since. That year, the Taney Dragons, of nearby Philadelphia, made a run to the national semifinal behind star pitcher Mo’ne Davis. Bandura was Taney’s catcher and leadoff hitter back then. Now, he’s trying to make the jump to pro ball.

Also, yes, the Robert Hassell SportsCenter references is the same guy who got drafted no. 8 overall in 2020 and is now a Nationals prospect. Fellow 2020 first-rounder Ed Howard also played in that Little League World Series, as did a few other players who have gone on to play college or minor league baseball.

“The cool thing for me is I wasn’t the best player,” Bandura says. “I was 5-foot-2, 80 pounds, in the leadoff spot, getting on base by any means necessary. I had a good eye and could walk a bunch, hit a bunch of singles. Those guys were huge and dropping bombs at 12. It was awesome to watch the gap close as time went on and I continued to develop. Now we’re on the same level.”

Bandura says the Little League World Series is mostly a distant memory for him now; obviously nobody who’s scouting him in 2023 cares what kind of player he was as in middle school.

“Nowadays, I don’t talk about it a whole lot, just because it was so long ago,” he says. But his trip to Williamsport did become relevant in an interview with the Blue Jays. “We were talking about growing up, and how you handle pressure and all that stuff. Like, I was thrown in front of 40,000 fans at 13. The reporters, questions, everything, I was exposed to that really early. So at this point, no moment is too big.”

Bandura’s 15 minutes of fame may be almost a decade in the past, but the fact that he’s played under that level of scrutiny before gives him a leg up on basically every other player at the combine. Nobody else in the draft, except for maybe the players who attended big SEC schools and and went to the College World Series final, has ever played in games that big.

“Every team that goes there has some type of impostor syndrome. Like, ‘How did we get here? These teams are way better than us,’” Bandura says. “So I’m going out there leading off the game against Blake Money from Tennessee, who’s at LSU now, he’s going to be drafted this year. They were loaded. The adrenaline takes over, and I’m in the on-deck circle as he’s warming up and the catcher’s throwing the ball down to second. Then it’s like, ‘I actually have to go get in the box now.’ ”

That game ended in Davis’ historic complete-game shutout win. Taney won once more before Davis’ next start, the 8-1 loss to Nevada that I went to. But thanks largely to the media circus around Davis, they still became national news and local heroes.

I have a hard time describing what a big deal the Taney Little League team was in the Philadelphia sports scene, because my honest assessment makes me sound like a lunatic. The proximity of Philadelphia to Williamsport, and the fact that most of the local pro teams were awful in 2014, made this exciting group of middle schoolers incredibly easy to latch on to.

Bandura says that in the relative isolation of the players’ accommodations in Williamsport, he had no idea what was going on in the outside world. By the time they realized, regional and national media were already in a frenzy.

“When we came home, we were blown away by how the city attached itself to us,” he says. “We knew we were having a parade, but Broad Street was packed. Like, this was all for us. We had no idea what was going on. And once we got home, it was a whirlwind of appearances. Obviously, Mo’ne was huge. Being lifelong friends with Mo’ne, and I was also the catcher on that team, so I got to do a lot of cool stuff with her. So yeah, it was a whirlwind for six, eight months after that.”

Having that experience in his back pocket, Bandura’s had to perform on a stage the likes of which few players in this class can contemplate, which is good. But nobody, least of all Bandura, wants to have peaked in junior high. So in order to top his trip to Williamsport, he has to try to make it in the pros.

Is that realistic?

Bandura is now listed at 6-foot-4, 190 pounds and looks every bit like a future big leaguer physically. This season was a breakout campaign for the Philadelphia native, who hit .363/.454/.665 in 47 games for Princeton, including 12 home runs and 15 stolen bases. With only one full season at the Ivy League level under his belt, Bandura doesn’t have a long track record to pore over; the Ivy League canceled its 2021 baseball season, and Bandura played just eight games his sophomore year. But he has made brief appearances in the Cape Cod League each of the past two seasons, and Princeton played a tough road schedule that allowed Bandura to show off for scouts.

“I was fortunate that I played well against the good teams when all the scouts were there,” Bandura says. “At University of Georgia I had a great weekend, then played pretty well at Duke. Then we had a midweek game against Rutgers this year; their center fielder is gonna be drafted pretty high, so there were probably 50 scouts at the game and I arguably had my best game of the year. Hit an opposite-field home run, threw a guy out, stole a base, went 4-for-5.”

Bandura also went 6-for-16 with three homers and two doubles in that season-opening four-game series at Georgia. In four games against Penn, the team that beat Auburn and came within a couple innings of a super regional, Bandura went 7-for-16 with two doubles and a home run.

In Phoenix, Bandura worked out on the first day of the combine. He took a little while to settle in during BP, but made hard line-drive contact in his second round. And in defensive outfield drills, he showed a strong, accurate throwing arm. And even though he got his first national exposure as a catcher, outfield is where Bandura will play going forward.

“I came into high school at like, 5-foot-8, 115 pounds, and by my junior year I was 6-foot-3,” he says. “I was a good receiver, but as far as movements go I was a little awkward as a catcher. I’d always played outfield in games that I didn’t catch, so I was pretty comfortable there. And we had a good upperclassman catcher at my high school who was going to catch every game, so I moved out to the outfield and let the speed work.”

Bandura is an interesting prospect; he’s long and lean, like a player who’s going to fill out and add more strength, but he’s also almost 22 years old. And while he says he’s an advanced enough hitter to contribute in the minors quickly, Bandura believes defense could end up being his calling card.

“I have limited reps in the outfield,” he says. “Like, most guys have been playing out there for their entire lives; I made the switch three years ago. So I think of myself as a good defender, but I think I can be an elite center fielder with more reps and more reads out there, so that’s my biggest focus.”

“Elite center fielder” is a big claim to make, particularly for someone who spent a lot of time in the corners in college. Nevertheless, Bandura believes he’ll get a shot to prove himself.

“My college coach was a 10-year big leaguer, Scott Bradley, and he’s been talking like he’s not going to get me back,” Bandura says. “So I’m assuming he knows more than I do. I’m pretty confident that somebody will like me enough to take me, and I’m ready to go play.”