{"id":700904,"date":"2026-05-17T00:57:38","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T00:57:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/700904\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T00:57:38","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T00:57:38","slug":"how-terry-francona-impacted-guardians-decision-to-draft-travis-bazzana-in-2024-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/700904\/","title":{"rendered":"How Terry Francona impacted Guardians\u2019 decision to draft Travis Bazzana in 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"

How Terry Francona impacted Guardians\u2019 decision to draft Travis Bazzana in 2024<\/a> appeared first on ClutchPoints<\/a>. Add ClutchPoints as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Travis Bazzana is one of the league\u2019s most exciting young prospects, as he finally made his MLB debut this season with the Cleveland Guardians<\/a>. He joined the franchise in the 2024 MLB Draft as the No. 1 overall pick that year. As it turns out, current Cincinnati Reds<\/a> manager Terry Francona<\/a> helped Cleveland select the rookie second baseman.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

The year in which Francona was not managing the Guardians and was instead working as an advisor for the franchise is when Cleveland selected Bazzana No. 1 overall. Francona recalled informing Guardians\u2019 President of Baseball Operations Chris Antonetti that he really liked Bazzana, as well as JJ Wetherholt, and felt the team should select one of those two<\/a>, according to Charlie Goldsmith of Fox 19 Cincinnati.<\/p>\n

\u201cTerry Francona has been impressed by Cleveland second baseman Travis Bazzana for a couple of years now,\u201d reported Antonetti. \u201cIn 2024, the year where he wasn\u2019t managing, Francona was an advisor for Cleveland\u2019s front office. Over the course of that college season, Bazzana and JJ Wetherholt both happened to play in Tucson.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrancona watched them each play over the course of the season. Cleveland had the No. 1 pick that year. Francona said last night, \u2018I remember telling (president of baseball operations) Chris Antonetti, I like them both. I couldn\u2019t tell them apart. They\u2019re both good. It\u2019s fun to see them now in the Major Leagues after seeing them in that setting.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Travis Bazzana, an Australian native, has flashed major potential<\/a> in his first 15 games with the Guardians. Through 50 at-bats, he owns a .240 batting average and .406 OBP with 12 hits, one home run, seven RBIs, and seven stolen bases.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll have a chance to add to those numbers on Saturday. The Guardians are scheduled to take on Terry Francona and the Reds at 6:40 p.m. in Cleveland.<\/p>\n

Related: Ex-Cleveland star Jason Kipnis reflects on Rajai Davis\u2019 incredible Game 7 home run<\/a><\/p>\n

Related: Guardians\u2019 Steven Kwan hitting somewhere other than leadoff in lineup for first time since 2022<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How Terry Francona impacted Guardians\u2019 decision to draft Travis Bazzana in 2024 appeared first on ClutchPoints. Add ClutchPoints…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":700905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2380],"tags":[5,31829,18762,50,135,51,2565,538,4,1175,12569],"class_list":["post-700904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cleveland-guardians","tag-baseball","tag-bazzana","tag-chris-antonetti","tag-cincinnati-reds","tag-cleveland","tag-cleveland-guardians","tag-clevelandguardians","tag-guardians","tag-mlb","tag-terry-francona","tag-travis-bazzana"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116587203404201979","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=700904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/700905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}