Travis Bazzana cricket career, revisited: How MLB Draft’s Australian slugger emerged as No. 1 pick candidate | Sporting News

Travis Bazzana is going to get a phone call from a team early during the 2024 MLB Draft. It might be as early as first overall from the Guardians, and it’s unlikely to be any later than the top five.

The Oregon State second baseman was a finalist for the Golden Spikes Award for the best player in the country. He blasted 28 home runs to accompany a .407/.568/.911 slash line. He walked 76 times to only 37 strikeouts, and he added 16 stolen bases.

Plenty of baseball players have multiple athletic backgrounds, with many having played sports like basketball and football in addition to baseball growing up. Bazzana is not like most players. The native of Sydney, Australia, grew up playing cricket before he eventually made the change to baseball at 15.

Like others, there were other sports he played, including track and field, basketball, soccer, and rugby, per his Oregon State bio.

How did Bazzana go from cricket to baseball? Here’s what you need to know.

Travis Bazzana cricket career, revisited

Baseball is growing in Australia, but it still has a ways to go until it reaches cricket level, and for Bazzana, that often meant playing more baseball than cricket.

He grew up playing a little bit of baseball and a little bit of cricket, but he told ESPN Australia that when he was 10, he started playing cricket in clubs.

“But baseball was just more, I was more passionate about it,” Bazzana told ESPN Australia. “If there was extra time for me to put practice into something, it was baseball and I loved it and I’d say I was probably a little better at baseball than I was at cricket. So, it made it a little easier.”

While at Turramurra High in Sydney, Bazzana lettered in cricket, per Oregon State, and he played wicketkeeper/opening batsmen. The wicketkeeper is the player who stands behind the wicket where the ball is being rolled. As the opening batsmen, he hit first.

He still found balance between baseball and cricket. He told Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci on the Book of Joe podcast he would take baseball swings before cricket matches.

Cricket places an added emphasis on making consistent contact, which Bazzana told MLB Pipeline helped to develop his bat-to-ball skills.

Those skills were further harnessed through his connection with Baseball Australia CEO Glenn Williams. Bazzana took hitting lessons, starting off practicing as a switch-hitter before transitioning to swinging only left-handed.

Because Australian players can’t become international free agents until 16 or become draft eligible unless they lived in the United States, Canada, or a U.S. territory, Bazzana had a decision to make. When he was 14, he decided to go from Australia to the U.S. in an attempt to reach the draft.

Bazzana could have become an international free agent at 16, but he decided it would be valuable to gain experience in collegiate baseball and playing in 60 games per season, according to MLB Pipeline. He also wanted to earn a college degree as he adjusted to life in America.

Bazzana explained he noticed players committing to Power Five programs and compared himself to many of them. 

“The Australians that went to colleges generally went to junior college. If they went to Division I, it was usually a small or mid-major,” Bazzana said, per Verducci. “The advice to me for the most part was that I should seek out a junior college and get playing time and kind of move on from there. But lucky enough, I had some good mentors that told me they’ve seen a lot of American kids, and they think I can go to a quality Division I college.”

At the age of 15, Bazzana joined the Sydney Blue Sox, an Australian Baseball League team. He was the youngest player in the league at the time, though he played in only one game, according to MLB Pipeline.

Being in that league gave Bazzana experience alongside American players, some of whom had been drafted or played collegiate football, Williams told MLB Pipeline. 

“I think it helped me grow up really quickly,” Bazzana said, per MLB Pipeline. “Being around ABL guys when I was 15, 16, 17 years old. You have to step up and can’t be a kid anymore. And I think that helped me a lot.”

Bazzana represented Australia in international tournaments, including in the 2019 U-18 World Cup, per MLB Pipeline. He also played in the United States in a 2019 showcase of NxtGen Baseball, a group founded by Ryan Rowland-Smith, an Australian former MLB pitcher, a mentor of Bazzana since he was 12.

It was during the 2019 MLB College Showcase that several colleges noticed Bazzana. One of which was Oregon State, with coach Mitch Canham extending the Australian an offer. Canham recalled to MLB Pipeline how, even though Bazzana was visibly emotional when he received the offer, he still did not accept it on the spot, instead saying he wanted to discuss it with his parents.

“The fact that he didn’t get sped up in that environment, that told me right there … that’s our guy,” Canham said. “That’s why he’s so special. Because when the arena is putting pressure on you and trying to speed everything up, you pause, and you know what your values are.”

Of course, Bazzana wound up accepting the offer and playing at Oregon State. It’s safe to say the move wound up being the right decision for Bazzana. He has hit over .300 every season he’s been in college. His home runs reached double-digits in 2023, and in back-to-back seasons, he’s walked more than he’s struck out and tallied double-digit home runs in both campaigns.

There has never been a first-round Australian. Australian-born baseball players have combined for only 13,442 plate appearances in MLB history, according to Stathead. Just three of them have more than 317 plate appearances in their career.

Bazzana is all but certain to be a top-five pick, with the chance to go first overall in the 2024 MLB Draft. After that, he seems a sound bet to drastically improve the total of Australian plate appearances in the big leagues.

“I think it’s setting the expectations and the goals and aspirations higher than just being there,” Bazzana told MLB Pipeline.