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.
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