Travis Bazzana Has Progressed as a Hitter, but the Changes Have Been Subtle

Travis Bazzana is a Top 100 prospect thanks in large part to an impactful left-handed stroke that enticed the Cleveland Guardians take him with the first overall pick of the 2024 draft. A 23-year-old second baseman from New South Wales, Australia who played collegiately at Oregon State University — and is now with the Triple-A Columbus Clippers — Bazzana came in at no. 54 in our 2026 rankings with a 50 FV.

How does the current version of Bazzana compare to the erstwhile Beaver who entered pro ball on the heels of an eye-opening 1.417 OPS junior campaign? Is he basically the same hitter, or has he made any meaningful adjustments to his setup or swing?

“There might be some subtle differences,” Bazzana told me prior to a recent game. “Not too much intentional change. I’m always trying to find my best moves, and best swing, but I would say it’s pretty subtle. There are weeks where I’m moving at my best, and there are weeks where it might look a little different, but I haven’t tried to overhaul anything since I got to professional baseball.”

He did make one notable adjustment that would qualify as an intentional change, though it dates back to 2022-2023.

“The biggest tweak came in college, working at Driveline,” explained Bazzana, who has been training at the Seattle-area facility for the past four years. “That’s where I go for my offseason assessments, and to continue to work on my hitting. I made a big postural and setup adjustment from freshman to sophomore year.

“There was also some bat-speed work at that time,” he added. “Since then, it has mostly just been checking up, trying to improve on little details and more finer things in my swing. Getting a lot of reps off the Trajekt machine is another thing I’ve done there.”

I was already aware of his postural adjustment thanks to a 2023 article on the Driveline blog, but I wanted to hear about it directly from him. What exactly did Bazzana change, and what was the reasoning behind it?

“We were focusing on how I could improve my offensive production,” he said. “One of the things is that I was very bent over the plate, and creating a lot of side and forward… I didn’t have much space to rotate, because of how my body was positioned. I made a setup change where I kind of put my hands back and my front elbow up. That cleaned up a lot of my posture and gave me space for my barrel to move through the zone a little better. That was when I was about 19 years old.”

Since that time, as he told me at the onset of the interview, things have been more or less status quo — albeit with the subtle differences.

“There are constantly things progressing, but there has been no drastic change in what I’m trying to do in the box, or how I’m moving,” Bazzana said. “It’s just constant tweaks to be at my best. Ultimately, I would like to be in a better place every day than I was the day before, but it doesn’t work that way. Some weeks it’s as good as you want it to be, and in other weeks it’s not.”

Bazzana’s batting practice, which preceded our conversation, caught my attention. The effort level of his swings in the rounds varied, and while that is by no means uncommon, his heftiest hacks seemed to come in his penultimate round, not in the final one where letting loose is more a norm.

Where does his game swing fit into that equation?

“When I’m at my best, it’s definitely a controlled aggression,” Bazzana said. “I’d love for it to be a very controlled load, and be swinging at a good 85%. If it’s very aggressive and 100%, that’s probably not where I want it to be. And then, if I was swinging slow at 50%, I might make a touch more contact, but I wouldn’t be driving the ball into the gaps as much.”

Bazzana has the ability to bash, and as our prospect analyst team wrote in February, “His swing is geared to generate lots of pull-side launch, so much that we’re inclined to project that Bazzana produces more game power than his raw strength would ordinarily suggest.”

Does he consider himself a power hitter?

“A power hitter? When I’m going well, I’d like to think so,” Bazzana said. “But generally, I just try to be as complete a hitter as I can be. Power is something I can continue to hopefully put out, but it’s definitely not the first thing that comes up when I think of myself as a hitter. I think I can get to power, but I’m also not 6’5” and 250 [pounds] and launching balls backside over fences. I’m only 6-foot — just under 6-foot — and 200 pounds.”

Bazzana’s writeup in our Top 100 rundown included the line, “He’s hyper-selective and, no matter the count or pitch type, he chases a full two standard deviations less often than the average big leaguer.” With that in mind, my penultimate question was about his approach. What is he looking for when he stands at the dish?

“In college, I was very much hunt heater and adjust,” he recalled. “A lot of times, that’s how you can approach guys in professional baseball, but an approach adjustment I’ve made has been pulling the trigger on more secondary pitches in the zone earlier in counts. Pros have a better feel for their secondary pitches. They’re going to land them more often, so they can steal strikes much easier than college pitchers typically can. I’ve found that I can take advantage of the hanging slider, or the glove-side changeup that maybe doesn’t have the movement the pitcher wants. But it depends on the pitcher. Regardless of the level, you always have to be ready to hit the fastball.”

Most every interview I’ve conducted in recent years has concluded with the same question: Is there anything else I should be asking you?

“Hmm… that’s an interesting one,” Bazzana replied. “I’m stumped. Actually, no. You should ask me what I consider the most important thing about hitting.”

So I did.

“It’s mental,” Bazzana said. “It’s all confidence and making the most of every at-bat. The presence you take to the box… José Ramírez is our prime example, with the Guardians. All of the greats do it. It’s the way they carry themselves into the box. They have pure confidence in themselves, on each and every pitch. That’s how I try to be.”