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    • Cleveland Guardians sign No. 1 overall pick in draft, Travis Bazzana
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    Cleveland Guardians sign No. 1 overall pick in draft, Travis Bazzana

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    CLEVELAND — Travis Bazzana didn’t realize it until Friday afternoon, when he stepped onto the court for the first time in Cleveland and shook hands with Jose Ramirez and several others.

    The Guardians selected Bazzana with the No. 1 overall pick in the MLB Draft. It was the first time in franchise history that Cleveland had the top draft choice, which president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti called an “extraordinary opportunity” for the organization.

    Bazzana of course knew he would be drafted at or near the top, but it wasn’t officially until about 20 minutes before the Guardians’ turn when Antonetti called to welcome him to the organization.

    The next few days were a whirlwind for Bazzana, who is originally from Australia. Family had to make the roughly 20-hour trip. He had media obligations as the No. 1 overall draft pick.

    But it didn’t really sink in, the gravity of it all, until he visited Progressive Field for the Guardians’ game against the San Diego Padres. While the Guardians were taking batting practice, Bazzana walked onto the field before he’d even been given his jersey.

    That’s where it all became clearer. And that field is his next target, because the biggest question is when Bazzana will join the major league club as part of the roster, and not just as a recent draft pick.

    “I think being on the field, watching Andres (Gimenez), Brayan (Rocchio), Daniel (Schneemann), Jose catching ground balls and being there and talking to the Major League coaching staff, it was definitely a defining moment,” Bazzana said Friday. “You’ve been watching these guys on TV for years, you’ve been watching Jose Ramirez’s highlights over and over again since 2017, and then you go out there and you can say to him, ‘What’s going on?’ I think it kind of sinks in.”

    Bazzana, who starred at Oregon State, immediately becomes the Guardians’ No. 1 prospect and will likely be drafted in the top 20 (or higher) in baseball once the official rankings are updated.

    It was announced Friday that Bazzana will begin his minor league career at High-A Lake County, skipping a few lower levels. It may not be long before he’s in Akron with the RubberDucks.

    And because Bazzana, 21, is a student hitter with a refined approach to the stroke, it stands to reason he could come through the Guardians’ minor league system more quickly than normal, assuming he plays well and stays healthy.

    It is not out of the question that Bazzana will return to Progressive Field late next year or early 2026 as a teammate of Ramirez and others, rather than just as a visitor.

    No. 1 overall pick Travis Bazzana wants to make baseball bigger in Australia with the Guardians

    Considering that Bazzana’s baseball career began in Australia, his path to the first pick in the draft could hardly have involved much mileage.

    As a kid, Bazzana watched all the baseball he could, but American baseball aired in Australia isn’t always the most regimented programming. It doesn’t help that many Major League games air at 5 a.m. He tried to be a fan of one team, but ended up jumping around and choosing instead to follow certain stars in the game, and Ramirez ended up being one of them.

    Bazzana even joked that it would be nice to wear just one shirt for a change, given that he spent much of his youth as a fan.

    Bazzana played a number of sports as a child, but baseball was his passion. He eventually became known as “the baseball kid” among his friends.

    One of his goals is to be a pioneer for children in Australia so that they can follow his example and take up baseball too.

    “I started realizing 12 to 18 months ago what an opportunity I had to take that torch and be the first to do it out of college,” Bazzana said. “We’ve had some great major leaguers, but this is a new path and the college game has a lot of attention. And we’re in an era where the next guy home can watch me if I have a good night at bat or make a cool play on defense.

    “They’ve been able to see my journey at Oregon State and I realize this (the draft selection) is a stepping stone and an opportunity to really grow the way Australians view baseball.”

    Bazzana has gained a lot of travel experience from the trip between Oregon State and Australia, perhaps too much.

    “It’s not a pretty flight,” Bazzana said, laughing. “Usually you’re going from Sydney airport to a major West Coast airport, like LAX or San Francisco, which is about a 14-hour flight. … It’s about a 20-hour travel time, and a lot of people have trouble sleeping on flights, so you might be a little bit angry or in a bad mood after those 20 hours.”

    No. 1 draft pick Travis Bazzana signs with Guardians for $8.95 million

    Bazzana and the Guardians reportedly agreed to an $8.95 million signing bonus, or about $1.6 million below the slot value. It’s actually less than the signing bonus of No. 2 overall pick Chase Burns, who agreed to a deal with the Cincinnati Reds for $9.25 million. Still, Bazzana’s deal is the fourth-highest bonus in draft history.

    Bazzana said it was clear that no player would get the slot value of the first pick. While he was researching teams that might draft him, he wanted to play in Cleveland, which made the negotiations a bit easier.

    “At the end of the season, I felt like the culture at the highest level, the young players, the intelligence of the organization, the consistency of winning over the last 10 years put the Guards in such a powerful position for me in terms of where I wanted to be,” Bazzana said. “I came out of (meetings with the Guardians) with a real gut feeling that Cleveland was where I wanted to be, and that it was the organization that I was going to develop into the player and the person that I wanted to be.”

    Bazzana could play his first game with Lake County within the next week or so. If that happens, another path will begin, this time right back to where he spent Friday afternoon.

    Ryan Lewis can be reached at [email protected]. Learn more about the Guardians at www.beaconjournal.com/sports/cleveland-guardians. Follow him on Threads at @ByRyanLewis.

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