Wilson: First overall pick, Bazzana, spent 10 days in Okotoks last September

Travis Bazzana, the top pick in this year’s MLB draft, and his Oregon State Beavers teammates spent 10 days training at the Seaman Stadium Complex in Okotoks, Alta. last fall. Photo: Ian Wilson

*This article was previously published on Alberta Dugout Stories on July 17. You can read it here.

July 19, 2024

By Ian Wilson

Alberta Dugout Stories

Travis Bazzana is a devoted student of the game of baseball, but the high-end prospect with the Cleveland Guardians is also a teacher.

As you talk to the first overall pick in the 2024 Major League Baseball (MLB) Draft, and you chat with those around him, it becomes clear that the infielder will leave no stone unturned when it comes to improving his game and the play of his teammates.

There are the adjectives you’d expect to hear when it comes to an athlete of his calibre – exceptional, gifted, skilled, driven, competitive – and many more descriptions of excellence.

You can see some of these attributes at play when the 21-year-old is taking batting practice, participating in base-running drills, raking the infield dirt, interacting with coaches and teammates, or talking baseball.

Members of the Okotoks Dawgs Academy got a glimpse of Bazzana’s greatness in September of 2023 when he and the Oregon State University (OSU) Beavers traveled to southern Alberta for the NCAA Division 1 team’s fall training camp at the Seaman Stadium Complex.

The 10-day camp included BP, mound work, time in the weight room, classroom sessions, inter-squad games and an exhibition match against the Dawgs Academy team, a Saturday night affair that was free for the public to attend.

During the trip, OSU Head Coach Mitch Canham discussed what he sees in Bazzana.

“That’s obviously a very special human being,” said Canham after watching the infielder send numerous balls over the Seaman Stadium fence during BP.

“He is, as I refer, part of the one percent, and even the one percent of the one percent. He’s very special.”

Canham described both an elite player and a quality person.

Travis Bazzana finishes a round of BP at Seaman Stadium in September of 2023. Photo: Ian Wilson

“Okay, on the field, right? Wow. He can hit, he can run, he can defend, he can do it all and his intent, his ability to compete and win, you haven’t seen many guys like that. But also who he is as a human being and how much he cares. We’re talking about another guy who is thousands of miles away from home and doesn’t get to be around his family, so there’s sacrifices. They’re giving everything they have into this. He’s the kind of guy who wants to go help people,” Canham said of the highest draft pick from Australia in MLB history.

“He’s studying psychology right now because it’s going to help his game and help him communicate with others and help them elevate their game. It goes much beyond the baseball stuff … I trust that guy to do the right thing, I trust that guy to always give his best, I trust that guy that he’s going to be successful and overcome adversity. And he knows, he’s got some things that he’s always working on. He’s never satisfied.”

STUDENT BECOMES THE TEACHER

Canham shared one story about Bazzana that highlighted his ongoing approach towards improving his craft and the play of those around him. In the summer of 2022, the coach made a request of his players for classroom presentations. These could be about “life stuff” or “baseball stuff” but he wanted them to show up prepared.

“Travis came in in the fall and – a guy who loves hitting – and did an hour-long presentation on induced vertical break and building stuff with a slider. So, a pitching presentation about how to help our guys get better and why these things are important and trackable and how to improve them. It was amazing. And everyone’s sitting their, ‘But dude, you’re a hitter? Why this?’ … ‘I’m just really interested in it and I want to study it and I want to share it,'” recalled Canham.

“It’s encouraged other guys to come up and present on things that either they are passionate about or things they just don’t know and want to do research on. So, it’s that learning that constantly goes on.”

When it comes to studying for an at bat, Canham said Bazzana can process a lot of information in a short period of time.

“He’s a guy that can take a scouting report and he’ll soak in all the information and it won’t cloud him. Whereas other guys are like, ‘Just tell me how hard he throws,’ or, ‘Is he right handed or left handed?'”

Micah McDowell, who roomed with Bazzana at OSU, experienced baseball osmosis living and playing with the talented slugger.

“You’re always picking a guy’s brain like that when he does it so easily at a high level. You just want to take what you can from that guy. He’s super personable and he loves giving feedback and honest opinions about guys’ swings and even defensively what they’re doing, even sprint speed and stuff like that,” said the outfielder from Nova Scotia.

“I think he’s really pushed me to the best of my abilities, even when it comes to nutrition and diet, off-field stuff. He’s just a guy you want around because he brings you up and makes you a better person.”

McDowell – who was a star player with the Okotoks Dawgs in the Western Canadian Baseball League (WCBL) before he took his game to the next level with the Beavers – also described Bazzana as a “freak” of a hitter with incomparable bat-to-ball skills.

Bazzana (left) and McDowell (right) chat during OSU’s fall camp in Okotoks in 2023. Photo: Ian Wilson

“He’s one of the most confident people that I’ve been around,” noted McDowell.

“The guy is just insane. He does everything right and he’s also a great person on top of that.”

EMBRACING THE DRAFT

For his part, Bazzana embraced his position as a highly-touted draft prospect well before hearing his name called by MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred on July 14 in Fort Worth, Texas,

“No doubt, I do pay attention to that. I’ve always been hyper-competitive and wanted to know where I sit and been self-aware myself, but also I’ve always wanted to be criticized and kind of feel like I’m fueled with those things and seeing names above me, behind me, all that. I just use it as motivation and roll with it, so I enjoy seeing those things and I think I’m good at taking feedback, whether it’s positive or negative. I look into it, but I still control what I can control and don’t really let it affect too much,” Bazzana told Alberta Dugout Stories of the MLB Draft chatter.

“I’m trying to go as high as I possibly can and, really, the way I’m going to do that is just control my outcomes on the field and just be process-driven and keep improving every single day.”

That relentless pursuit of improvement is a recurring theme for Bazzana.

He discussed it with respect to his approach at the plate.

“I think I’m a student in everything I do in life, and I’m just obsessed with hitting and I have been for a long time. I understood the importance of going out there and having success offensively from a super-young age and I’ve always wanted to be great at baseball, so I just have dove in, day after day for years on end. Since I was nine years old I’ve been researching hitting, early in the mornings, after school, whatever. I just love the conversations with the guys and I want to be able to share the knowledge I have and also bounce back information from guys and learn myself,” said Bazzana, who had a .407 batting average and a .568 on-base percentage in his junior year at OSU.

When he was dissatisfied with his base stealing, he sought assistance.

“I’ve always had some wheels and I trained really hard to get faster in high school but I felt like I never stole bases how I could. I always wondered, my first one-to-three steps always felt slow to me. It didn’t feel right and I’d get thrown out … I shouldn’t be getting thrown out when I’m fast like that, you know? So, I really wanted to take that next step,” said Bazzana.

Rachel Balkovec, a hitting coach with the New York Yankees, worked in the Australian Baseball League in 2020 after the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the cancellation of the minor-league season.

She worked with Bazzana on his base-path techniques and recommended he read The Complete Base Stealing Manual, by Matt Talarico. Bazzana read that and studied film to see how he could improve.

“I guess I had a little phase where I really dove into that and then I got better at it but I didn’t always have the confidence to go trust it,” he admitted.

Hoping to put what he learned into practice, he took his research one step further and consulted Rodney Green, an outfielder from the University of Cal Berkley who led the Pac-12 in stolen bases in 2023.

Bazzana (left) talks to an OSU teammate at Seaman Stadium in Okotoks. Photo: Ian Wilson

“He just told me, ‘Hey, I’m just running a lot, I’m trusting it. I’ve got confidence that there’s some things I’m looking for.’ And I kind of took note of that and that night I stole five bags in a game and from there I just went,” said Bazzana of a record-setting night running the bases at Goss Stadium.

“It was just a confidence thing. A lot of this game is mental and I had the skill to do it, I just had to find the right cues in my head when I was out there to go out there and do it.”

As detail-oriented as Bazzana is, he’s able to maintain a sense of the big picture and the lofty goals he’s set for himself.

“I’ve showed myself since a young age that I can continue to get better, get better, get better. I’m not really setting limits on myself. Personally, I think I can go really far in the game and I believe that I’ve got an innate ability to find a way to get better,” observed Bazzana.

“My day-to-day thoughts and actions revolve around my dreams and goals and the people that I’ve came to be with in this game. I credit a lot to the opportunities that the game’s gave me and I think a lot of my goals and the future vision for myself is based around giving back in this game, and it all comes through the relationships with people that are here with me.”

Spoken like a true student … and a teacher.