Injury to keep Cleveland Guardians' top prospect out of action for extended period

The Cleveland Guardians received some bad news on Tuesday. After being out of action for nearlly a week, it has been revealed that top prospect Travis Bazzana is going to miss a good chunk of the season.

Bazzana suffered a right internal oblique strain and is expected to miss the next 8-10 weeks as a result. The injury came after a swing during an Akron RubberDucks game on May 14th. Bazzana would state he was experiencing right flank soreness, with an MRI confirming the oblique strain. The Guardians announced that Bazzana is set to report to the team's facility in Goodyear, Arizona, to begin his rehab.

An oblique strain can be tough to come back from, and there is no guarantee that a player fully recovers during the season. Considering how frequently it is used during the game of baseball, It is far more likely that Bazzana's oblique muscle will not be 100% again until the Guardians report to spring training ahead of the 2026 season.

Bazzana had been solid at Double-A Akron before going down with an injury. The first overall pick of the 2024 MLB June Amateur draft was slashing .252/.362/.433 with five doubles, four home runs, and three triples while driving 17 runs, scoring 29, and stealing eight bases for the RubberDucks. Bazzana's 135 weighted runs created plus in 33 games is a pretty impressive mark and an improvement on the 126 wRC+ he posted for Lake County in 27 games last season.

There was a chance that if Bazzana could have kept producing at a similar clip down in Akron, he could have made his Major League Debut later this season. While the chance still exists, the likelihood of that happening just took a significant hit with Bazzana being sidelined for 2+ months. The Guardians may feel a lot more comfortable pressing pause on any possible promotion to the majors this season because of this injury, and that is honestly not the worst thing in the world.

Bazzana is still 22 years old and having him finish out this season in the minors with a possible ramp-up to the Guardians' major league roster in the early parts of 2026 should he not make the team out of spring training may be the best path forward here. It will the Guardians to focus on sorting out the pre-existing excess of infielders in the organization currently ahead of Bazzana, allowing any potential contributors who could have gone otherwise overlooked a chance to prove their worth. Meanwhile, Cleveland's second baseman of the future gets to fully recover from his oblique injury, return to being an everyday player in the minors afterward, and then eventually get ready to make an impact in the majors next season.