The Guardians are not planning to carry second base prospect Travis Bazzana on the Opening Day roster. According to Tim Stebbins of MLB.com, Bazzana has been informed he won’t make the team but will remain in big league camp for a few more days.
Bazzana, 23, seemingly came into camp with a legit chance to break camp. He is expected to be the club’s long-term answer at second base but the question is when that will start. The first overall pick of the 2024 draft, he split last year between Double-A and Triple-A, finishing his season with 26 games at the top minor league level. In his 120 Triple-A plate appearances, his 26.7% strikeout rate was a bit high but he ran a huge 24.2% walk rate in that small sample and hit four home runs. His .225/.420/.438 slash line led to a 138 wRC+.
Having already showed some success at Triple-A, there was an argument he was ready for the majors, especially considering that the Guards didn’t get much offense from their middle infield last year. On the other hand, his professional track record is still pretty limited. As mentioned, he was only drafted in 2024. He missed some time with injuries last year, appearing in 84 games in total. When combined with the 27 High-A games he played in his draft year, he has only 111 profesional games under his belt.
This month, Bazzana represented his native Australia in the World Baseball Classic, putting up a .188/.235/.375 line in four games. In Cactus League action, he has a .286/.333/.500 line in five games. It’s unknown if the Guards are putting any stock in those numbers or if they always had planned to send Bazzana back to the minors to start the year.
Once upon a time, it was basically guaranteed that a top prospect would be held down in the minors for the first few weeks of a season. By doing so, a club could prevent a player from earning a full year of service time in that season and therefore gain an extra year of club control over the player, a practice commonly referred to as service time manipulation.
The current collective bargaining agreement introduced some new measures, known as the Prospect Promotion Incentive, which have made it far more common for top prospects to break camp. Under these measures, a top prospect can earn his club an extra draft pick if he is promoted early in the season and then goes on to meet certain awards criteria. Also, a prospect can be awarded a full year of service time retroactively even if promoted later, if they are able to finish in the top two in Rookie of the Year voting.
Bazzana is a consensus top prospect, so the Guards could have given him the second base job out of camp and hoped for him to earn them a draft pick. It doesn’t appear they will go that route. Instead, they will send him to the minors, at least to start the season.
Last year, Gabriel Arias and Brayan Rocchio got the majority of the middle infield playing time in Cleveland. Both players were subpar at the plate. They actually had matching wRC+ numbers of 77 on the year, indicating they were each 23% below league average. Arias got strong reviews for his glovework at short, while Rocchio’s defensive metrics were more mixed.
It’s possible that those two are again the primary middle infielders to open the 2026 season, with utility players like Daniel Schneemann and Ángel Martínez also in the mix. Juan Brito is also on the 40-man roster and could push for some playing time, though he hasn’t yet made his major league debut. He still has an option and was limited by injuries to just 31 minor league games last year. The Guards could send him back to Triple-A for more reps but he has over 170 games played at that level overall.
Circling back to Bazzana, even if he doesn’t break camp, his PPI eligibility is still theoretically possible. The Guards have a 186-day season this year and a player needs 172 days in the majors to earn a full year of service time. They could promote him in the first two weeks of the season and keep PPI on the table. Perhaps there’s a scenario where he’s crushing the minors or someone else gets hurt and Bazzana is promoted early enough.
If nothing like that comes to pass, then it will be interesting to monitor exactly when he gets called up, as they will then have motivation to keep him down longer. In 2024, the Pirates held Paul Skenes down until the second week of May but he pitched so well that he earned a full year of service regardless. In 2025, Bubba Chandler was pitching well in the minors but the Bucs held him down until late August, seemingly hoping to avoid a repeat of the Skenes situation.
Photo courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas, Imagn Images
I’d hope not. That’s usually the GMs job. Don’t want to put too much on this kids plate.
Yes there is more to a player than just batting average, but shouldn’t a top prospect excellence at all parts of a slash line? .225 in AAA seems a tad on the low side. Maybe if he had stayed in camp, they would have had more opportunity to be impressed, but watching him perform (not well) from a distance in the WBC could not have helped his chances. Let him prove he is ready at AAA.
Fax me some halibut?
Damn it. I want to watch him take it on.
If he is healthy, it is difficult to imagine him being at AAA too long.
Look for him to be called up in mid june playing center field !
A lot of crazy things would need to happen to push Bazzana to the Cleveland OF in 2026.
They said no to the Italian Stallion? What kind of organization is this? I know they’re cheap but he doesn’t cost much. Yet anyway. LOL
A lot of teams leave their top Prospects down.I feel the Red Sox should do it with Mayer.Let him play real well and force his way up.
Yeah nah on the Italian Stallion moniker. Born in Sydney. A country with SFA baseball cred. We ain’t letting the Italians take credit for one of the few that can change that.
You’re right! My bad. Thanks for the correction. He just sounds Italian. LOL
He not ready yet goof ! Follow baseball much !
The Guardians will have to tell fans that on opening day; “ Yes, we have no Bazzana“.
They’ll make it up with Bazzana bandana giveaway day.
Bazinga!
Even if they started him on opening day & he stayed up all season, I don’t see him being in the “top 2” for ROY. Therefore, if they bring him up 3-4 weeks into the seasons get the extra control. In this case I can see & agree with the team’s decision. He’ll still be around to (possibly) be a huge upgrade for the majority of the season.
CLE is such a Bazz-kill. Indians would have left him up. Guardians send him down.
Time to move on.
Bust
Your wrong snowflake !
Your?
No surprise. He was only drafted a year and a half ago.
As Sheldon would say, Bazzinga! No soup for you.
There’s a George Bonanza here to see you.
Cartwright?
How much could a Bazzana extension cost, Michael? $10?
Mr Bazzana grabber?
We just say Bazzana grabber.
If you stapled him to a wall and called it art, about $200K.
Clearly don’t want to win if going with crap they have over a great player like Travis. Sad fans giving up on him just because he isn’t Kurtz.
They contradict themselves every year during ST, and this is no different. They said they wanted to improve the lineup internally, and that will clearly not be the case if Arias and Jones are on the OD roster. I wouldn’t be surprised if they held Bazzana down until after the lockout.
There’s more to the season than opening day. If they call him up in May (assuming he’s earned it), wouldn’t they be still be improving the lineup internally?
Jones will be dfa and clear waivers and be sent down. How dense are you ?
Kurtz is coming back to earth this year. He had a super inflated balls in play average that he won’t be able to sustain this year. He will still hit 20 but he won’t be the Superman he was last year.
Because the team has plenty of offense thank you very much…..
WHY ISNT BAZZANA PLAYING FOR THE SAVANNAH BANANAS?!?!!
By the end of next week, 10 (or more!) first rounders from the class of ’24 will have debuted. Bazzana is not one of them.
Once you start saying his last name in the style of the Budweiser Whassuupp commercials you’ll never stop.
So Bazzana split?
The Guardians aren’t in an easy spot here.
Bazzana hasn’t been bad but he was advertised as a 60 grade hit tool guy and that just isn’t there. There is not massive whiff but slightly higher whiff and an elevated pull rate with him going for pull side power albeit with good plate discipline.
I could see him being a willy adames type hitter. Adames for his career is 10% walks, 27% k and has a 244/320/440 line and just signed a big contract so that wouldn’t be the worst outcome for bazzana. However the Guardians might not be quite there to accept that and would want to get more contact and hit tool out of him, especially if they fear that 25/26% minors k rate could jump to high 20s against mlb stuff.
Right now he is about a 40 grade hitter who would likely be a bit of a three true outcome guy. Not massive adam dunn style but likely about a 230/320/430 guy with 20+ homers. That would be a 750 ops and is absolutely playable in the middle infield but the Guardians could be willing to try to coach him up to a 50 grade hit tool which would mean lowering his k rate to maybe 21-22%, lower pull rate from high to low 40s and maybe also lower power from 22 homers to like 15 homers.
That way he could be a 260/350/410 hitter with 15 homers. The OPS would be similar (760 ops) but higher average average and obp would be more typical Guardians and middle infield Profile. On the other hand the times are over when you wanted contact in the infield and slug in the outfield and at first and DH, today atypical profiles can succeed.
I would tend to let him lean into his strengths and accept that he is not a high hit tool guy.
Thats a clown show ! This is mlb baseball sir !
Major league baseball baseball?