Travis Bazzana wants to help inspire Australian ballplayers for years to come

When Team Australia held on to beat Korea, 8-7, in a close opening game of the 2023 World Baseball Classic, Travis Bazzana was a sophomore at Oregon State University, watching the game as a fan.

Three years later, as Australia prepares to face Chinese Taipei on Wednesday (Thursday, local time) in this spring’s first WBC contest, Bazzana will don his country’s green-and-gold uniform and take the field as perhaps the team’s most prominent player.

A lot has changed in just a few years.

Now 23, Bazzana is the Cleveland Guardians’ top prospect (No. 20 overall, per MLB Pipeline) after being selected as the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 MLB Draft. The Hornsby, Australia, native won Cape Cod League MVP in 2023 and Pac-12 Player of the Year in 2024 while setting several program records at Oregon State.

Bazzana enters the 2026 season with a shot to make Cleveland’s big league roster, possibly by Opening Day. But first, he has the chance to represent his country on the global stage.

“Growing up, I really cherished some junior opportunities playing for Team Australia, and also watched World Baseball Classic Qualifiers and the World Baseball Classic as a kid,” Bazzana told MLB.com. “I think the World Baseball Classic and the World Series were two dreams growing up, and have continued to stay that way. So having the opportunities we do to represent our country and play on the world stage with some of the biggest stars in the game is incredible.”

Team Australia is coming off its best showing out of five WBC appearances, making it out of the first round for the first time in ‘23. The Aussies finished second in Pool B with a 3-1 record before falling to Cuba in the quarterfinals.

Bazzana said it was “massive” for the team and its fans to make it that far.

“Everyone in the baseball community is watching, and to see us compete against some of the best players in the world and win on a stage like that is always great,” he said. “The kids in the next group of players, they have something to look to.

“It’s not like they then look for that opportunity moving forward, and think, ‘Oh, we can't do it. We’re Australia, we’re overmatched,’ or anything like that,” Bazzana added. “They come into it with the right mentality, and see a vision for beating teams that are really, really quality, and in a big stage like the Tokyo Dome and the World Baseball Classic.”

Bazzana, who has played second base and designated hitter in the Minors, will be joined on Team Australia by five players with MLB experience: Curtis Mead, Alex Wells, Warwick Saupold, Jack O’Loughlin and Aaron Whitefield. Seventeen players are returning from the ‘23 WBC.

One player who is not on Australia’s 30-man roster -- but could still see action as part of the team's reserve pitcher pool -- is MLB veteran Liam Hendriks.

Hendriks, the 37-year-old Perth native and three-time All-Star, had initially announced his intention to play, but is continuing to rehab from an injury that limited him to 14 games in 2025. Hendriks missed the 2023 WBC, most of the ‘23 season and all of ‘24 with Tommy John surgery and his battle with Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He inked a Minor League deal (with an invitation to Spring Training) with the Twins last month.

“He epitomizes how we as a country and a sport want our players to play the game,” Bazzana said of Hendriks, whom he met in person for the first time in Spring Training last year.

Should Hendriks end up playing in the WBC, it would “mean a lot” for Bazzana to share a clubhouse with a giant of Aussie baseball. He compared Hendriks to fellow Australian reliever Grant Balfour, who himself had an impressive 12-year MLB career.

“There's not many opportunities you get prior to being in a Major League locker room to actually spend [time] with Major League longtime service players, let alone an Australian who spent a long time in the Major Leagues,” he said. “It's a wonderful opportunity for all of the team. I just hope to learn something and build the relationship. ... I think people like Curtis Mead and I hope to kind of carry on what he is doing and has done.”

For Bazzana, the opportunity to play in the ‘26 WBC is about more than national pride. It’s also about starting off on the right foot in what could be a pivotal season for his career.

Bazzana dealt with an oblique injury last season that limited him to 84 games, including 26 in Triple-A. MLB Pipeline’s Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo estimated that Bazzana has a 30% chance of cracking the Guardians’ Opening Day club.

“I truly think it's one of the best opportunities to prepare for what's ahead,” Bazzana said of the WBC. “I think that playing in front of 40 to 60,000 fans in the Tokyo Dome, against [Team Japan stars like Shohei] Ohtani, against maybe [Yoshinobu] Yamamoto or [Munetaka] Murakami ... playing games like that where you can't hear yourself, you can't hear the guy next to you, that's like a playoff MLB environment.

“You learn from those experiences and games like that, and grow from them. So the opportunity to do that, preseason, in a year where I hope to take a next step and have an impact in the Major Leagues, it's a great experience and an opportunity to play on a big stage. It's not something you take for granted.”

Regardless of the outcome, Bazzana said suiting up in the green and gold is an opportunity to inspire future generations of Aussies — like Hendriks, Balfour and others did for him.

“There's nothing like playing with people from your home country,” he said. “There's such a small community, a pretty small community for baseball in Australia, so we're all tight-knit, and we have a lot to play for.

“... And then in the future, just keep growing. Keep building this roster, keep building our professional players and Major League players in Australia, and hopefully inspire someone to help us out in years to come.”