His name is Travis Bazzana. You can call him “Bazz,” as his Oregon State teammates do. You can call him “The Wonder from Down Under” or the “Bazzmanian Devil,” as the sometimes fact-bending creatives on the internet do. (Actually, he is from Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, not Tasmania.) But soon you just might be calling him one of the more unconventional No. 1 picks in the history of the MLB draft.
A second baseman for Oregon State, Bazzana is playing himself toward the top of the draft with a game that best compares to Corbin Carroll of the Arizona Diamondbacks and a backstory with enough unexpected turns to rival The Thorn Birds. Bazzana is a former wicketkeeper/opening batsman and captain of his high school cricket team, a psychology major, meditation devotee and an analytics and tech-savvy self-taught hitter who might well be on his way to fulfilling his lofty preseason goal.
“To be honest, my goal at the start of the season was to be the best hitter in college baseball,” Bazzana told me and former manager Joe Maddon on our podcast, The Book of Joe. “Really, it’s about my process and going about it and believing I can be the best hitter in the country. I think the draft takes care of itself.”
