Making The 1-1 Case For Oregon State Second Baseman Travis Bazzana

His hitting track record is as lengthy as any player’s in the class.

One of the most obvious strengths of Bazzana’s resume is the length and history that comes with it. He has a significant amount of track record at the college level, in high-quality wood bat summer leagues and even a handful of games in the Australian Baseball League.

A long history of hitting prowess is one of the best ways to create confidence in a player’s hit tool and Bazzana checks that box emphatically. He played 45 games in the West Coast League as an 18-year-old before he started his college career, then in the summer of 2023 he played 33 games in the Cape Cod League where he was named league MVP and ranked as the top prospect in the circuit. 

Between the two summer leagues, Bazzana hit .406/.465/.588 with seven home runs in 78 games with 33 walks and 44 strikeouts. That’s a significant sample of wood-bat performance layered onto his three full seasons with Oregon State where he has quite literally been one of the best hitters in program history.

While Condon does have the advantage of playing in the SEC, the fact that he didn’t play at all in 2022 and has a bit less overall track record might be a point in Bazzana’s favor. In fact, Bazzana’s wood bat history and overall track record is more than any of the other top five college hitters in the 2024 class—including players like Braden Montgomery, who was a prominent high school prospect.

Below are how each player stacks up with college wood bat league ABs and the total Synergy Sports pitch data each player has for scouts to pour over. Wood bat ABs count most college summer leagues as well as time with USA Baseball, while Synergy includes each pitch a player has logged—with college teams, summer events in high school, summer leagues, showcases, etc.

Player	College Wood Bat ABs	Total Synergy Pitches
Travis Bazzana	368	4883
Charlie Condon	333	3163
JJ Wetherholt	201	2670
Braden Montgomery	143	4194
Jac Caglianone	34	2642
Nick Kurtz	0	3223

Can you find a more well-rounded offensive skill set?

There are hitters who hit the ball harder than Bazzana does. There are hitters who make contact at a higher rate and chase out of the zone a bit less frequently. But put all those three elements together and it’s difficult to find a player as well-rounded as Bazzana has been—throughout his career but particularly this season. 

With batted ball data for players through April 20 games, there are exactly two D-I players who meet the following criteria:

• A 90th-percentile exit velocity of 108 mph or more
• A contact rate of 85% or better
• A chase rate of 16% or better

Those players are Travis Bazzana and Lehigh third baseman Rafe Perich. Those thresholds are fairly arbitrary, but even when isolating for only the 116 college hitters ranked and with data available on our current Top 400 draft list Bazzana acquits himself nicely. Here are his ranks in a number of categories:

• Average exit velocity: 10th (95.2 mph)
• 90th-percentile exit velocity: 15th (108.9 mph)
• Peak exit velocity: 35th (111.9 mph)
• Contact rate: 16th (85.4%)
• Chase rate: 15th (15.4%)

Among this data and player set, there are exactly four players who rank inside the top 40 in each of these categories. Bazzana, Wake Forest first baseman Nick Kurtz, Kentucky outfielder Ryan Waldschmidt and Bucknell third baseman Sean Keys.

Bazzana entered the 2024 season with an excellent reputation for his pure contact skills and batting eye at the plate, but his uptick in power has thrown him into an elite tier of offensive prospect with no true holes in his game. His full-season 2023 90th-percentile exit velocity was 105.9 mph. During his first two seasons with Oregon State, Bazzana hit 17 home runs. Of those homers, only one was hit to the opposite field. While he’s still mostly a pull-oriented power hitter, he has homered to the opposite field five times in 2024 without any loss in contact or increase in aggression at the plate.

Below you can see his 2022-2023 home run spray chart (above) next to his 2024 home run spray chart (below) thanks to Synergy Sports: 

Among the top six elite college hitters in the class, only Kurtz is close to Bazzana in terms of how well rounded his offensive profile is: 

Rank	Player	AvgEV	90thEV	PeakEV	Contact%	Chase%
1	Charlie Condon	98	112.3	118.2	82.70%	21.60%
2	Travis Bazzana	95.2	108.9	111.9	85.40%	15.40%
3	Jac Caglianone	92.1	110.4	121.7	79.90%	37.60%
5	Braden Montgomery	98.3	110.8	114.4	77.00%	20.80%
7	Nick Kurtz	94.1	110.6	114.6	82.50%	14.40%
8	J.J. Wetherholt	92.4	106.8	110.9	82.70%	15.10%

There are few up-the-middle defenders at the top of the class—Bazzana is one.

You might be inclined to view Kurtz nearly as favorably as Bazzana after looking at the table above. After all, his top-end exit velocities are more impressive and his contact and chase skills are right there with Bazzana. 

The position you’re listed at in the lineup is an important distinction, and Bazzana is one of two players in that elite tier of six who is more likely than not to stick at an up-the-middle defensive position—catcher, shortstop, second base and center field. 

Kurtz and Caglianone are both first basemen now who don’t have any real reasons to move off the position in pro ball. Montgomery has played almost exclusively right field throughout his college career and while there are some scouts who think he might get a shot to play some center, he has a prototypical right field build and tool set. Condon has played 10 or more games at five different positions with Georgia in his two seasons—including 11 in center field—and might provide the most defensive versatility of any in this group, but his size and run tool projections should make him more likely to settle into one of the four corner positions than any spot up the middle. 

That leaves Bazzana and Wetherholt as the only players with a greater than 50% chance to stick up in the middle in the long term. Wetherholt has played third base, second base and is primarily playing shortstop this year, while Bazzana is a capable defender at second base who might have the speed and athleticism to be solid or above-average in center field at the next level.

There are currently 22 hitters ranked inside the top 30 on the draft board. Of that group I would classify eight players as near locks to play a corner position, three as more likely than not to play a corner position, three more as perhaps a 50-50 chance to play a corner position and eight who are more likely than not to stick at an up-the-middle position.

You could probably quibble with those classifications, and I’ll include them below so you can slide players from tier to tier as you see fit, but the point I want to drive home here is that Bazzana’s defensive profile—whether that’s second base or center field—is a separator when comparing him to the top-end college bats in this class.

• Near locks to play a corner position: Jac Caglianone, Nick Kurtz, Cam Smith, James Tibbs III, Billy Amick, Tommy White, Carson Benge, Dakota Jordan.
• More likely than not to play a corner position: Charlie Condon, Braden Montgomery, Malcolm Moore.
• Near 50-50 chance to play a corner position: Bryce Rainer, Seaver King, Kaelen Culpepper
• More likely than not to play up the middle: Travis Bazzana, JJ Wetherholt, Konnor Griffin, Vance Honeycutt, Caleb Lomavita, Walker Janek, Slade Caldwell, Kellon Lindsey

There’s little projection necessary to see an all-star caliber player.

This is the first point I’ll make for Bazzana that I think you could actually argue in either direction. Some scouts would undoubtedly point to this claim and say, “this is a mark against Bazzana, not a case for him,” and I wouldn’t disagree entirely out of hand. 

However, I think it’s also true that teams value the perceived safety of any given player profile and with Bazzana there’s less you need to do in terms of projecting for skill gains, physical gains, health outcomes or handling increased quality of competition than virtually any other player in the class.

If Bazzana’s uptick in power this season is legitimate, what is the tool or area of his game where you’d have to see significant improvement before you were comfortable projecting an all-star caliber player? He is shorter than most of the other top-end hitters in the class, true, but he doesn’t have the sort of physical limitations that former Oregon State second baseman Nick Madrigal had at the same time and you also don’t need to project at all on him adding strength and filling out his frame like you need to with most of the high school hitters mentioned above.

Bazzana does not have the physicality of players like Condon, Caglianone, Montgomery and Kurtz but nor will teams have to worry about him being strong or durable enough to hold up over a full professional season. He also hasn’t had a series of nagging injuries that have limited him in the past like both Kurtz and Wetherholt have had to deal with.

Given the combination of his hitting track record, advanced skills in all phases of the game and the strength he already has in hand, Bazzana profiles as one of the quicker-moving players in the class and the present grades on his scouting card are probably as close to getting an impact player as you might find. 

The reports on his makeup are exemplary. 

Talk to any scout and ask them whether or not makeup is important. I’ve yet to hear from one who doesn’t believe it is—regardless of how difficult it might be to quantify or how subjective makeup evaluations inherently are.

For most players the makeup evaluation probably falls into some bucket that can largely be described as “fine.” It’s not something that is going to change the profile significantly in one direction or another and the player doesn’t seem a huge risk to alienate teammates and coaches or get the player into real trouble off the field. 

There is a smaller number of players whose makeup grades might skew towards either extreme. A flag red enough that might prevent a team taking the player regardless of the tools or one green enough that a team is convinced a player will be able to maximize his natural talents, soak up coaching like a sponge and also have the leadership qualities to forge a clubhouse around him.

Bazzana, like Adley Rutschman five years ago, seems to be in the latter camp. He’s a player who scouts go out of their way to talk about his baseball IQ, work ethic and makeup. Some scouts have mentioned that he gave one of the most impressive in-person interviews they’ve ever done. Coaches almost universally praise the way he carries himself on the field and the way he’s able to consistently do the little things well. 

Makeup, more than any other attribute we’ve talked about here, is an area where we here at Baseball America aren’t well-positioned to evaluate ourselves. There’s not a nice clean number like slugging percentage we can look at to judge, contextualize and compare from one player to the next. But when scouts are as eager to commend it as they are with Bazzana, we take note.