The Bazzana Era Begins!

 Some might say it is a move of desperation

Some may say it is about time.

But today begins the Traivis Bazzana era in Cleveland...ready or not!

So what do I expect from Bazzana:

1. Given that he is currently slashing .287/,422/.511/.933 in Columbus, I expect he will slash .260/.340/.440/.780 in Cleveland

2. I expect his K rate to go up 20% and his walk rate to go down 20%. I expect his whiff rate to go up 10% and his chase rate to go up 10%

3. I expect his defense to be halfway between Schneeman and Brito at second base

4. In my most difficult expectation, I expect that if we starts slow his production is likely to crater as he will lose confidence more quickly than the average player although he is more likely to rebound than Brito, JRod, etc. as he will quickly learn that he doesn't have to be successful all the time if surrounded by good players, compared to Australia, college and the minors where he HAD to be the best.

I hope he is the spark we need.  This is quite the gamble by the Guardians as they lose a year of pre-arb control and he can't get them a PPI draft pick, although he may cost them a full year of control like Bibee did in his rookie year.

Finally, I expect this to be an overwhelmingly positive addition to the Guardians 2026 effgort.

2026 Draft - Rounds 2-5 and some late round possibilities

In this second post of this series, I am providing a very early look at guys who I think the Guardians could draft and who I think will be there when they get to all these spots in the first 5 rounds. I have already shifted off my #29 pick and I provide options for their picks in the first 5 rounds.  Again, this is very preliminary and I will have to see these guys play 'live', if possible.  

Update on picks in Round 1

Slot #19 (1st Round)

Saw Hunter Dietz pitch again vs Missouri and he gave up HR-HBP-HR to lead off the game and finished it off with 7 scoreless innings (including the rest of the 1st inning). He showed great flexibility in changing his whole arsenal around after those first 3 batters and looked pretty dominant, albeit against a rebuilding Mizzou lineup.  Still on Dietz as our pick at slot #19

Now Dietz is still my pick here.  However, in recent developments Baseball America has Georgia Tech OFer Drew Burress (#5 prospect on MLB Pipeline) sliding to us at slot 19 and USA Today in their latest mock has Logan Reddeman, RHP UCLA, (#18 on ESPN) slightly falling to us at #19.  I have not seen Reddeman pitch yet and I have not looked at Burress bc I didn't think he would fall to us.  That being said, scouting reports on Reddeman intrigue me and I would be OK with him if Dietz was already taken. Burress would be a great get, being a likely CFer with RH Bazzana-like offensive skills and makeup.  I could easily imagine Bazzana-DeLauter-Burress for years along with Jose, Schnee and Angel.  Still, Groucho Marx once said "I would never want to be part of a club that would have me as a member" so if the #5 prospect in the draft falls to #19 just based on his perceived limitations, do I really want to gamble on him a year after gambling on LaViolette?  For me, its still Dietz with Reddeman in contention if he is still available.

Slot #29 (Comp A)

I am going to move off college pitchers here (unless Dietz falls and I take Reddeman at 19) and hope that a sentimental favorite will still be here. Landon Thome is rated in the 40s and is, of course, Jim Thome's son.  I might have to flip flop Thome and whoever I was planning to take at 29. I obviously have not seen the younger Thome play but once you get in the 40s range HS hitters are less sure things than a top 10 HS hitter would be.  The only thing you really have to go on is pedigree, tools and baseball IQ, all of which Thome apparently has. HS hitters are a risk but I will go with Thome unless I go with Reddeman first and Dietz is still available.  

Possible Picks In Rounds 2-5

Slot #59 (2nd round)

I still like Tegan Kuhn and am sliding him down to this slot because I think he will be there if I go with Thome or Dietz at 29. Ideally, I would get Reddeman, Thome and Dietz but I don't think that is possible so if I only get 2 of the 3 because the 3rd one is gone at this pick, Kuhns is my guy here.

Slot #95 (3rd round)

Continuing my run on overdrafted college pitchers, I saw Missouri's #1 starter, Josh McDevitt RHP Missouri (not listed in the top 200 of most draft prospect lists), pitch against Dietz and #24 Arkansas, including #29 overall draft prospect Ryder Helfrick.  McDevitt loaded the bases on walks in the worst but struck out the side on the way to 6 scoreless innings with a career high 11 Ks.  Despite that first inning he is a strikethrower who uses the FB 70+% which touched 95 along with a slider and an occasional curveball and changeup.  The term 'reliever risk' is thrown around as a derogatory term but in this case I look at this kid and see Cade Smith part deux.  I see him getting up to 97/98 in a relief role if he can't stick at starter, So, after opening with 3 college starting pitchers I am hedging my bets knowing that I have a pretty good chance of getting a leverage RP in McDevitt.

Slot #123 (4th round)

Now we are getting to the range where the Guardans (and me) would be looking for projectable arms and not all of these picks will make sense to us fans as they aren't top 100 ranked guys. That being said, my pick here is Cameron Johnson, LHP, Oklahoma, big bodied guy pitching in a pretty good program.  The stats looked intriguing (only 3 HRs allowed in 84 innings in college/summer ball), he throws 95-97 with the secondary stuff lagging behind, almost all types being get-me-over variety.  I watched him pitch against #11Auburn and he threw 110 pitches of which 100 were fastballs, mostly 95-98.  He had six 3-2 counts so his command needs work as when he missed, it was with intention on backfoot sliders. On those 3-2 counts he got 4 outs and gave up a single and a walk. He is 6'6", 250 pounds and resembles, to me, CC Sabathia early in his career.  In addition to the 110 pitches in the game I saw, he threw 116 earlier in a game against Alabama so that may be a plus (durability and ability to compete when he is tired) or a red flag (overuse injury waiting to happen?).  He was clearly gassed the last inning against Auburn.  Note that even with his size and velocity he is currently not a big strikeout guy, likely because of the lack of secondary stuff.  Warning: this is an extreme overdraft but my recent experience with the draft is that guys who you think should be comfortably available in a particular round are gone 10-20 picks earlier.   

Slot #155 (5th round)

Continuing with college arms, I am picking Tyler Rabe, RHP, Ole Miss with the 5th round pick.  Rabe, 6'5", 200 lbs (some room to add strength) has a great combination of a fastball that sits 97-99 and has only walked SEVEN batters in 56.2 innings at#17 ranked Ole Miss.  He has struck out 47 in 40.1 IP in 2026 against 5 walks. He has given up some loud contact this year (39 hits and 7 HRs so far this season).  When I saw him pitch yesterday against a stacked lineup in #5 ranked Georgia, he had what I would refer to as ineffective secondary stuff early due to poor command and his fastball looked hittable as it looked a little straight, resulting in a HR to dead center. He tired in his 6th inning, resulting in diminished fastball velocity but much better use and command of his off-speed stuff.  He had given up 2 runs in 6 IP on 6 hits at that point, a quality start.  He was allowed to pitch to one batter in the 7th, who doubled, and who the relief pitcher allowed to score. My impression was, in Cleveland's pitching lab, when looking at his FB velocity and his low walk rate, as a 5th round pick from a program that plays advanced competition , this appears a slam dunk pick to me if he is still on the board at that time.  

Late Round Sleepers of the Day

As will be the case with all these posts. Today's pick is: Dylan Johnson,  C, RHH, College of Charleston.  A classic 3rd day pick for the Guardians, I like his bat, his batting eye. His stats  are very comparable to those of Cooper Ingle except that Johnson has been a full-time catcher.  This is the year of the catcher (especially college catchers) in the 2026 MLB draft so a guy like Johnson may fall to the 3rd day where the Guardians like to pluck their college catchers from. 

I am putting in another plug for Judd Utemark,  a RHH UTIL, Ole Miss.  He was on my 3rd day watch list for the 2025 draft due to his position versatility (he was the tallest secondbaseman in DI last year while also having started games at 1B, 3B and all 3 OF spots with some talk about him even being the starting SS this year).  He has a long swing but shows a decent contact rate and eye at the plate.  When I saw him on Sunday his bat speed and foot speed impressed me as he hit a 2-strike, 108 mph ground ball to the SS that was turned into a DP on a great turn at 2B and they STILL only beat Utemark, a RHH, by an eyelash at 1B. Utemark was among the NCAA D1 leaders with 22 HRs in 2025 and already has 17 in his senior year in 2026.  Definitely fits Cleveland's versatility profile and, as a RHH, he balances out the handedness profile of Cleveland's OF/1B power hitting prospects. As a college senior I could see him sneaking into the end of day 2 or early in day 3 of the draft.  I could even see them trying to redo their David Fry conversion and try adding catcher to his versatility.

Summary/Disclaimer

As I said in my previous post, these are very early projections of who will be available, how I think the Guardians should structure this draft (mostly college pitchers) and who is pitching well right now.  I haven't had a chance to see all of these guys yet and it is clear from my description the guys I have seen and not seen yet.

More to come in future weeks.  Stay tuned.

Thoughts for a Monday: Angst Over The Season So Far and Our Complicated Roster Crunch

I Thought Watching Baseball Was Supposed To Be Relaxing!

In 2020 the Browns were playing away against Pittsburgh in the wild card round. As I am sure you all remember, the Browns scored first, and then again. We're a few minutes into the game and we're up 14-0 and I remember saying to myself 'This is not enough, we need a bigger lead'. Well, as fate had it, the Browns found away to run that lead to 28-0 before the Steelers scored.  The final score of the game, 48-37, showed it was two games: The opening quarter plus was 28-0 Browns.  The remainder of the game was 37-10 Pittsburgh, a score that was within what some 'experts' were saying the entire game would look like.

So, forgive me if I angst over losing Tuesday to St. Louis after having a 4-1 lead on a terrible error by Brito AND losing on Friday after holding a 4-0 lead entering the 8th inning on a complete collapse by the bullpen in the 8th.  We are 13-10 and that is at the top of what I could have, with a straight face, predicted our record would be when I looked at the schedule before the season. So I should be happy, right? Well, I remember that Steelers game, I remember the Tigers in 2025 and I remember 2024 when we built a big lead which allowed the team to relax down the stretch and hold that lead.  

Bad loses early are just the same in the standings as one run loses where the team played well and  I also remember the saying that teams are guaranteed to win 60 and lose 60, with the other 42 determining the success of their season.

Still, I HATE early season bad losses as you can't get those games back.  13-10 is good but 15-8 at this point would be outstanding.

Roster Crunch Stuff

Juan Brito needs to go.  David Fry needs to be sent to Columbus.  Matt Festa and Connor Brogdon need to be off the roster.  Travis Bazzana and/or Milan Tolentino need to be called up TODAY. Walters, Espino and Aleman need to be called up to bolster the bullpen and the AAAA guys Festa and Brogdon need to be sent to Columbus. Cooper Ingle needs to be called up and Bo Naylor sent down for a reset

All those things sound nice at this moment, right?  

Unfortunately, things are not that simple. Here are some reasons why:

- Our 40 man roster is full

- We have no one (thankfully) to put on the 60-day IL to create a roster spot.

- The only obvious guys to DFA are Colin Holderman and Codi Heuer, but the former would be owed his entire salary.  Both are bullpen depth.

- The rest of the 40-man is full of prospects and guys in the majors.  There is no fluff

So, while sending Brito down and bringing up Tolentino or Bazzana sounds good, we would have to DFA someone to do it as neither Tolentino or Bazzana are on the 40-man and would have to be added to be called up.  Ditto for Ingle if he was called up and Naylor was sent down. Plus adding Ingle would give us FOUR ML level catchers on our 40-man which is probably not a good use of 40-man roster spaces.

While sending down Festa and/or Brogdon sounds good, neither has an option left meaning we would have to DFA them to take them off the major league roster, likely lessening our bullpen depth available to call up from Columbus in case of an emergency.

Plus Brito and Fry are RH bats and our minors are, by design I think, filled with mostly LHH.  So sending these guys out would make our active roster even MORE LH.

So switching the roster around sounds good, especially to me as a prospect geek.  But essentially almost all of our off-season plans would be trashed with the season less than one month into this season.  And right after we lost prospects to bring in these AAAA pitchers we are now jettisoning (still ticked off we lost JRod and Nikhazy for Holderman and Brogdon). 

So, while people think these are good roster moves, probably it is not a good look if you blow up a roster built on some stupid, off-season free agent decisions. It also is not a good look to send down more young guys after we promised to give those guys enough runway to prove themselves, something we have already went back on (Kayfus demotion).

2026 Draft - Part 1 - Early Season Impressions

 OK, it's time to start thinking about the draft.  This year I plan to organize my thoughts by highlighting guys I think will be available at each of the Guardians draft slots.

Let's first talk about the dates.  The first night of the draft will be July 11th and will include all picks (38) before the second round.  The Guardians will pick twice, at #19 (regular 1st round pick) and #29 (Comp Round A pick). The second day of the draft (July 12th) will be rounds 2-10, the rounds that have bonus slot values above the minimum.  These rounds, along with round 1, determine how much money teams likely will have to spend to offer overslot bonuses on 3rd day picks. The 3rd day of the draft, (July 13th) will include rounds 11-20, similar to what 2024 included but different than 2025, which was only a 2 day draft.  Round 11 becomes a key moment in the draft as many teams will know how much money they have left to spend, what stud prospects are still available and what it will cost to sign them, if they want to be signed.  This was not the case in 2025 where they shortened the draft to 2 days, which created issues for teams trying to budget for late round flyers who would require overslot bonuses to sign. 

From the Guardians perspective (no pun intended) the draft looks pretty open.  There seems to be a lot of strength at the very top, say the top 5 picks will have superstar potential and then, after that, it looks like it could be teams liking who they like.  By that I mean that this year's rankings may go out the window at draft time with a lot of lower ranked players being selected higher than normal.  While that, of course, happens every year, I think this year will be extreme with maybe only 15 top 38 ranked players being selected on day 1, with the other 23 selections being ranked anywhere from 10 to 40 places below where they are selected.  

So, what do I think the Guardians should do? In 2021 the Guardians selected mainly college pitchers. Whether that was by design or just how the draft worked I, that I don't know. Position players they selected (Koxx and Fox) and high school pitchers (Ventimiglia) have not done well.  Of the 18 college pitchers they selected, 15 of them are still in our system, most at AAA and AA.  Most probably won't make the majors or at least won't have long major league careers but the point is not that.  It is that the Guardians did a great job of drafting and developing the college pitchers they selected, starting with Williams and Bibee and maybe, eventually, including Aleman and even, eventually, Aleman, Davenport )inured now), Denholm, Webb, Dion and maybe Abney and other middle relievers. 

The 2021 draft worked so well to infuse quality pitching prospects into their system and the system seems, in 2026, to be thin in terms of pitching prospects as the emphasis in 2022 to 2025 was to infuse position player prospects.  I think this year the Guardians should have another college pitcher draft.  They might have done this last year but essentially every college pitcher that was on their radar for the first 4 rounds was gone before they selected in that round.  They would have had to overdraft college pitchers with middling stuff and chose to go a different direction, over drafting questionable college position players and HS pitchers early, leading to my grade of C- for their draft.

They need to correct that this time around. This might require some overdrafting and going for more solid prospects rather than brass ring guys, saving money for HS flyers and maybe some college sophomores in later rounds.  However, with the approach of slightly overdrafting college pitchers who will almost assuredly be available, I think they stand a better chance of getting the players they put the most scouting hours into.

So let's dive in, looking at round 1 today, as a bonus, give my first mention of a potential 3rd day pick..

Round 1 (slot 19) - Hunter Dietz. LHP, Arkansas

Right now Dietz is rated 35th by MLP Pipeline, 25th by ESPN and 85th by Perfect Game. He is a classic Friday night starter at a good college, with good stuff and projectability. I see him as a Bieber-type of pitcher in the right organization.  He does have an injury history and hasn't thrown much before this year so I don't think he will jump high enough in teams rating to be gone by pick 19, even if he continues to pitch well the rest of this season.  His fastball sat 95 MPH when I saw him this spring and his breaking stuff looked sharp.  

Round 1 CB-A (slot #29) - RHP Tegan Kuhns

This is where it gets dicey as teams may see the value of Kuhns, a draft-eligible sophomore, based on his improvement this year.  He has a history of control problems but, so far this year, Kuhns, currently ranked 43 by MLB Pipeline, 24th by Perfect Game and 77th by ESPN, has only walked 10 and struck out 64 in 51 innings.  I think the combination of leverage from his sophomore status and lingering questions about his control might make him available at that spot.

My backups, should Kuhns be taken, would be LHP Cole Carlon, or LHP Shane Sdao, although I think Sdao is likely to be available in the 3rd or even 4th round, given how his season is going.

SUMMARY - These two pitchers would fill a need within the organization as far as quality college arms who can come fast.  Neither are sexy or the type of brass ring picks that fans like.  However, after looking at last year's draft, it is clear to me that we should aim low and heavily scout guys we are comfortable will be there and I think these two guys will be.

Third Day Pick Possibility - Mark Quatrani C Notre Dame

As a preamble, I identified Boston Smith, a catcher from Dayton, as a potential 3rd day pick for the Guardians last year and Washington actually selected him on the second day (6th round) and then traded him this winter to Tampa Bay.  So, I have at least a little history of success in identifying hidden gems among senior college catchers.

I have seen Quatrani twice this spring. He is a senior transfer from Cornell and Notre Dame's primary catcher.  He is currently hitting .343 with 11 HR 15 BB and 30 K in 134 AB with his swing and miss being exposed by hard stuff inside.  However, I saw him hit a 460 foot homerun vs North Caroline and all that is enough for me to make him my 11th or 12th round picks.  I think he stands a good chance to be significantly better than Boston Smith (a 6th orund pick in 2025) and Bennett Thompson (our 13th round pick in 2024).  The Guardians put a lot of emphasis on good game calling and catching skills in their 3rd day college catchers as organizational catchers appear to be crucial to them in developing their pitching prospects.  Still, you get a catcher who can hit AND hit for power who will be available on day 3, you should jump on him as your 2026 3rd day college catcher.

So, this is my first foray into the 2026 draft as it applies to the Guardians.  Over the next three months I will be posting other articles about the draft.