Travis Bazzana Has Improved As A Striker, But The Changes Have Been Subtle

Travis Bazzana is a Top 100 prospect thanks in large part to the impactful lefty that enticed the Cleveland Cavaliers to take him with the overall pick in 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 estimates for 2026 with 50 FV.

How does the current version of Bazzana compare to the Beaver of yesteryear who pitched the best ball on the heels of an eye-opening 1.417 OPS junior campaign? Is he basically the same hitter, or has he made some meaningful changes to his setup or swing?

“There may be subtle differences,” Bazzana said before the latest game. “It’s not a very deliberate change. I’m always trying to find my best moves, and my best swing, but I can tell it’s subtle. There are weeks when I’m really good, and there are weeks when it might look a little different, but I’ve never tried to fix anything since I got into professional baseball.”

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

“The biggest change came in college, working at Driveline,” explained Bazzana, who has been training at the Seattle-area center for the past four years. “That’s where I go to test my preseason, and continue to work on my hitting. I do a lot of postural adjustments and setup from freshman to sophomore year.

“At that time there was also bat-speed work,” he added. “Since then, it’s been mostly just testing, trying to improve the little details and the finer points in my swing. Getting more reps on the Trajekt machine is another thing I’ve done there.”

I already knew about his postural correction thanks to a 2023 article on the Driveline blog, but I wanted to hear about it from him firsthand. What exactly changed Bazzana, and what was the reason for that?

“We were focused on how I can improve my offensive productivity,” he said. “One of the things was that I was bending over the plate a lot, and I was doing a lot of side and forward … I didn’t have a lot of room to rotate, because of the way my body was positioned. I made a setup change where I put my hands back and my front elbow up. That cleaned up a lot of my stance and gave me room for my barrel to go in that position when I was 19 years old.”

Since then, as he told me at the beginning of the interview, things have been the same – albeit with subtle differences.

“There are always things going on, but there is no big change I’m trying to make in the box, or the way I move,” said Bazzana. “It’s just a constant evolution to be at my best. At the end of the day, I’d like to be in a better place every day than the day before, but it doesn’t work that way. Some weeks it’s as good as you want it to be, and some weeks it doesn’t.”

Bazzana’s batting practice, which preceded our conversation, caught my attention. The level of effort in his throws varies from round to round, and while that’s not uncommon, his highest hacks seem to come in his semi-final round, not the final where a let-off is the norm.

Where does the swing of his game fit into that equation?

“When I’m at my best, it’s controlled anger,” said Bazzana. “I’d like it to be a more controlled load, and swing up to 85%. If it’s too aggressive and 100%, it’s probably not where I want it to be. Then, if I was swinging 50% slower, I might have more contact, but I wouldn’t be hitting the ball as much.”

Bazzana has the power to hit the water, and as our team of futures analysts wrote in February, “His swing is designed to present a pull-side, so we’re inclined to point out that Bazzana generates more game power than his raw power would suggest.”

Do you consider yourself a hard hitter?

“A power hitter? When I’m pitching well, I 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 hopefully continue to work on, but it’s not the first thing that comes to mind when I think of myself as a hitter. I think I can get into power, but I’m also not 6’5″ and 250 [pounds] and throws the balls from behind over the fence. I’m only 6-foot – less than 6-foot – and 200 pounds.”

Bazzana’s write-up in our Top 100 picks includes the line, “He’s very selective and, regardless of the number or type of wing, he’s chasing two standard deviations less than a major leaguer.” With that in mind, my first question was about his method. What do you want when standing in a container?

“In college, I hunted a lot for the heater and got used to it,” he recalled. “A lot of times, you can talk to guys like that in professional baseball, but the adjustment I’ve made has been pulling the trigger on some second pitches in the area before statistically. Professionals have a better feel for their second pitches. They’re going to get them more often, to steal strikes a lot easier than college pitchers can. I found that, maybe, I could benefit from changing the gloveup. It doesn’t have the movement that the pitcher wants but it depends on the ball regardless of the quality, you must always be ready to hit the fastball.

Most every interview I’ve done in recent years has ended with the same question: Is there anything else I should ask you?

“Hmm… that’s interesting,” Bazzana replied. “I’m stuck. Actually, no. You have to ask me what I consider most important about hitting.”

I did so.

“It’s in the mind,” said Bazzana. “It’s all about confidence and making the most of every at-bat. You’re a presence in the box… José Ramírez is our prime example, and so are the keepers. All the greats do it. It’s the way they put themselves in the box. They have pure confidence in them, in every field. That’s the way I try to be.”