Bazzana - Chase Utley or Mickey Moniak - The Jekyll and Hyde Story Continues

Number one pick in the 2024 draft

A guy with speed, power, supreme barrel ability, great strike zone judgement who is driven by analytics the same way the Guardians are.

How can this go wrong?

I mean, sure, high school draft picks who went at #1 overall have underperformed or, generally due to injury, failed totally.  

But Travis Bazzana?

He is as sure of a thing as you can get.  Clearly not a brass ring pick as it was an off year in the draft and the Guardians didn't feel the desire to gamble with that pick, but, nonetheless, a good, solid pick with potential to be an organizational pillar for years to come, a multitime allstar and, as a college player, his MLB time should start sooner rather than later.

The guy reminded me of Chase Utley when we drafted him.

Unfortunately, he is starting to look more like Micky Moniak now.  

I have seen almost every professional at bat that Bazzana has taken.  In the first two games of this season he looked like the guy we drafted.   However, last year, this spring training and in an overwhelming majority of the ABs he has taken since those first two games, have shown him whiffing at hittable pitches, hitting weak popups to 3B and taking a lot of called strikes.

He has done enough good things that all these bad ABs could just be noise, which is what you would think looking at his overall stats this year.  However, when you consider that he started 6-8 on the season and has gone 5-24 with 8 Ks and, as I said, a lot of weak contact since, I am still concerned.  

The weather will warm up making hitting, hitting for power and stealing bases easier. 

In the meantime, we will have to wonder if we drafted Chase Utley or Mickey Moniak.  

For a team that had never had a #1 overall pick until last year, let's hope it's not the latter, as this organization counts on its draft picks meeting or exceeding expectations.  If that doesn't happen with a #1 overall pick, that would be a big loss for the Guardians in terms of important assets for the future competitiveness. 

Headed Home - Thoughts About The First 3 Series and the Start of The Minor League Season for All Full-season Affiliates

Guardians

1. We all could tirade about the trading of Gimenez and Naylor in terms of not getting anything back of value, at least for 2025, wasting another year of Jose's contract.  We could discuss how Paul Sewald looks a lot like Scott Barlow Part II and how the money could have been better spent on a SP like Gibson or Heaney..  We can whine, as I did, that Nolan Jones is less valuable to this team than Tyler Freeman was and how that trade actually hurts us in 2025 instead of helping us.

2. We could all complain that we are getting on the field exactly what we paid for...less performance than last year when we had Naylor and Gimenez

3. Or we could rave about Manzardo and how he is going to be a star and dream on the day Bazzana and DeLauter will be in this lineup...and make no mistake, if all three of those guys are in the lineup in August this offense will take off.

4. But, for the immediate future, I am somewhere in the middle, similar to my prediction of 84-78.  But make no mistake about it.  If we don't right this ship soon, we are looking at a 70-92 season.  Go Guards.

Minor Leaguers

1. Juan Brito looks ready to hit in the majors.  Another month and he would be ready but we don't really have a spot for a DH right now and he has little position versatility so I don't really know what to do with him.  But, offensively, I think he is ready.

2. The Horwitz to Pittsburg trade is looking about as I thought.  On paper we got an exciting return, just like I thought we did when we got Boyd and Hajjar for Will Benson.  However, if it looks too good to be true it probably is.  No way Horwitz was worth three excellent pitching prospects. What we got with Ortiz, Hartle, Kennedy and you can throw in Cecconi, too, is a bunch of young pitchers to put through the Guardians finishing school for pitching prospects (aka The Factory).  Disappointing from a current value standpoint but, as they say, you can never have too much pitching...even if it isn't ready for the majors yet.

3. As far as minor league teams, Akron and Columbus have the most exciting offenses and Akron and Lake County have the most exciting pitching staffs.  

4. We are now seeing that Kody Huff may be the first man up if we need another catcher and that Cooper Ingle and Jacob Cozart are then the next wave.

5. Will the real Travis Bazzana please stand up?  The guy we saw on Friday and Saturday, 6-8 with 2 BB and 2 SB was 180 degrees from the guy we saw last season and in ST this year.  He was barreling up almost every ball and didn't swing and miss once in the 50+ pitches he saw.  Then he came crashing back to earth on Sunday against a tough LHP and followed that up with bad ABs against RHP, looking a lot like the 2024 Bazzana. Time will tell but, man, that guy we saw on Friday and Saturday looked awfully good to me.  Now, let's talk for a second about the gthrow he air-mailed into the dugout...hmmm.

6. Speaking of Ingle let's talk about the slap hitter draft of 2023 for a minute. At the top of that class was Velasquez, Clemmey and Walters.  Hard to argue with those 3 picks based on results so far.  After that we had:

CJ Kayfus

Cooper Ingle

Christian Knapczyk

Tommy Hawke

Alex Mooney (for $1 million)

Jonah Advincula

So far Kayfus is showing some power, Ingle is the ultimate slap hitter but with some gap power, Knapczyk is an organizational utility man w/o any speed or power, Hawke is in his 2nd year at Low A as a college guy, Mooney is at AA but showing little power and Advincula is at Lake County hitting towards the bottom of the order.

We'll see how it turns out but right now the slap hitter draft is not looking too good.  Hopefully we never see a slap hitter draft again.   Now, an all pitcher draft like in 2021 is something I could get behind...or an all power-hitter draft.