The Cleveland Guardians made the decision that top prospect Travis Bazzana would not be making his major league debut at the start of the 2026 season. It wasn’t even really a close call, as the highly touted second baseman was told he wouldn’t be on the Opening Day roster with days remaining in spring training.
Now, just seven games into the season, speculation is already growing about when Bazzana will get promoted. That is because neither shortstop Gabriel Arias nor Brayan Rocchio has been producing at the plate.
With a lackluster offense an overall team concern, the Guardians could get a boost from adding Bazzana to the lineup. He is considered one of the best hitting prospects in the game, and Cleveland looks like it may have an immediate need for him.
With that in mind, Guardians assistant general manager Matt Forman revealed when Bazzana might get called up, saying there is no timetable for it.
“We don’t put timetables on players. We certainly haven’t put a timetable on Travis. My hope and expectation is that at some point in the 2026 season, he’ll be impacting our big league team. We always tell players that there’s some things that they can control, and some things they can’t. They can’t control when there’s an opportunity in the big leagues, but they can control their preparation for a potential opportunity whenever it presents itself. One thing I know about Travis is that he’s doing just that, he’s working his talk off to keep getting better every day,” Forman said.
"We don't put time tables on players. My hope and expectation is that at some point in the 2026 season he'll be impacting our big league team."
⚾Matt Forman, Guardians assistant GM, on when Travis Bazzana might get called up pic.twitter.com/Jh5LKQ2N34
— 92.3 The Fan (@923TheFan) April 3, 2026
Bazzana did spend some time at spring training away from the Guardians while competing for his native Australia in the World Baseball Classic. That may have had something to do with him not making the initial 26-man roster, but it is more likely that the Guardians wanted him to develop just a bit more after he was sidelined multiple times during the 2025 minor league season by a series of oblique injuries.
However, Cleveland might not be able to afford to wait much longer if Rocchio and Arias, in particular, continue to struggle. Rocchio has started six games at second base and one at shortstop and has just four hits in 20 at-bats. Arias has been worse than that, with just two hits in 19 at-bats in his six starts at shortstop. He did hit a home run in Cleveland’s most recent game, a win against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
If the Guardians do decide to promote someone to solve their immediate middle infield woes, it could be Juan Brito instead, but Bazzana almost certainly will get the call at some point during the year.
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