JJ Wetherholt vs Travis Bazzana

We are still months away from the 2024 MLB Draft. However, there is anything but a clear cut favorite for a #1 pick. We might not have a real idea until knowing in December what team has the #1 pick following the lottery. Two of the top names, JJ Wetherholt and Travis Bazzana

This is not going to be an article choosing who I have over who yet, but I am going to take a dive into the two to see if there are any important things to keep an eye on heading into 2023. The parts I will focus on will be things that I have access to that either are in many teams’ draft models, or are predictive in stats that will impact draft models. I will also be adding elements comparing the two between 3 players who received $4,000,000 or more in the draft as collegiate infielders: Tommy Troy, Matt Shaw, and Jacob Wilson.

Handling Velocity

Let’s take a comparative look to see how each Bazzana and Wetherholt faired in the 2023 college season handling velocity.

Against 92 MPH or Harder

Pitches Seen: Weatherholt: 125 (60 In-Zone)… Bazzana 139 (50 In-Zone)

Contact Rate: Weatherholt: 93.4% … Bazzana 84.6%

Chase %: Weatherholt: 13.2% … Bazzana 16.1%

I-Z Contact Rate: Weatherholt: 91.7% … Bazzana 89.5%

ISO on Batted Balls: Weatherholt: .296 … Bazzana .364

Hit-Pull Rate: Weatherholt: 46.2% … Bazzana 36.8%

Groundball Rate: Weatherholt: 59.3% … Bazzana 41.7%

From this here are the takeaways. Wetherholt makes more contact, and chases less, but the quality of contact is not as conducive to success with teh high pull-side groundball rate. Bazzana needs to clean up the swing and miss a little bit, but he is not at a concerning rate one bit.

Let’s compare these numbers to three 2023 first round infielders: Tommy Troy, Matt Shaw, and Jacob Wilson

Against 92 MPH or Harder (2022 → 2023)

Pitches Seen: Troy: 46 → 144 Shaw: 114 → 150 … Wilson: → 60 → 94

Contact Rate: Troy: 78.6 % → 91.9 % Shaw: 82.1% → 81.8% … Wilson: → 94.6% → 94.9%

Chase %: Troy: 31.6% → 19.7 % Shaw: 24.6% → 31.3% … Wilson: → 39.1% → 38.5%

I-Z Contact Rate: Troy: 86.4% → 95.7 Shaw: 84.6% → 85.7% … Wilson: → 100% → 97.5%

ISO on Batted Balls: Troy: .417 → .369… Shaw: , .385 → 1.045 … Wilson: → .150 → .147

Hit-Pull Rate: Troy: 54.5% → 52.6%, … Shaw: 0.0 %→ 23.8 % … Wilson: → 33.3%, 20%

Groundball Rate: Troy: 25% → 43.3% … Shaw: 40.0% → 39.1 % … Wilson: → 40% → 50%

Looking at the 2022 stats, to see how Wetherholt and Bazzana have done compared to these players heading into the draft season:

Contact Rate: Wetherholt 2nd, Bazzana 3rd

Chase: Wetherholt 1st, Bazzana 2nd

I-Z Contact Rate: Wetherholt 2nd, Bazzana 3rd

ISO on Batted Balls: Wetherholt 4th, Bazzana 3rd

Hit-Pull Rate: Wetherholt 2nd, Bazzana 3rd

Groundball Rate: Wetherholt highest, Bazzana 2nd highest

Wetherholt looks to be at or near the top in terms of contact and plate discipline, closest similar to Jacob Wilson. Where Bazzana takes advantage of Wetherholt is the ability to make more consistent contact in the air, more similar to Tommy Troy.

Strength of Schedule

West Virginia and Oregon State had similar ranked strength of schedules, with West Virginia 48th and Oregon State 61st.

Filtering by opponents is important because it’s important to see how a player does against tougher competition. To do this, I have filtered to see how Wetherholt and Bazzana did against Q1 opponents (RPI Top 50)

Wetherholt: 87 PA, 75 AB, .413/.494/.680, 8 2B, 4 HR, 12 RBI, 11/13 SB, .267 ISO, 5.7% BB, 8.0% K, .500 wOBA

Bazzana: 57 PA, 47 AB, .277/.370/.596, 4 2B, 3 HR, 10 RBI, 2/2 SB, .319 ISO, 12.3% BB, 19.3% K, .409 wOBA

What do I notice? I notice more consistency in Wetherholt compared to his normal 2023 stats than Bazzana’s. In particular, a few things I noticed were different were walk rate and stolen bases. Bazzana’swalk rate was down 3% against these quadrant 1 opponents, who would be expected to be quality strikethrower. Bazanna’s 11.3% BB rate at the Cape Cod League may be more representative of what to expect at the highest level, which is still really good, but not 80-grade.

The second, which can be a combination of Oregon State strategy or Bazzana in general, is stolen bases. Bazzana had 34 steals in 2023, but most of them came in bulk in midweek games and weaker opponents, with games including a 5 stolen base performance against Seattle U on April 18. He did steal 14/17 at the Cape, but it is something to keep an eye on.

How did Tommy Troy, Matt Shaw, and Jacob Wilson do in 2022 and 2023 against Q1 opponents?

Troy 2022: 79 PA, 74 AB, .378/.410/.608, 6 2B, 1 3B, 3 HR, 7 RBI, 0/4 SB, 3.8% BB, 17.7% K, .230 ISO, .437 wOBA

Troy 2023: 114 PA, 103 AB, .272/.342/.417, 4 2B, 3 HR, 15 RBI, 6/6 SB, 9.6% BB, 14.9 % K, .146 ISO, .334 wOBA

Shaw 2022 48 PA, 37 AB, .378/.521/.784, 3 2B, 4 HR, 10 RBI, 1/2 SB, .405 ISO, 20.8% BB, 12.5 % K, .539 wOBA

Shaw 2023 55 PA, 46 AB, .457/.527/.870, 4 2B, 5 HR, 16 RBI, 1/1 SB, 12.7% BB, 14.5% K, .574 wOBA

Wilson 2022: 40 PA, 36 AB, .361/.425/.639, 5 2B, 1 HR, 9 RBI, 0/0 SB, 278 ISO, 10.0% BB, 2.5% K, .451 wOBA

Wilson 2023: 15 PA, 14 AB, .143/.200/.286, 1 3B, 0/0 SB, .143 ISO, 6.7% BB, 0.0 % K, .212 wOBA

Compared to everyone’s here, Shaw’s looks the most promising when looking at this all blindly. Similarly to Bazzana, Shaw had a monstrous Cape Cod League performance heading into his draft season. The performances of Troy and Wilson, especially the inconsistnecy and downward performance, definitely raise an eyebrow.

How Do They Look Heading Into 2024?

Looking at the two aspects I covered, here are the things I note of the two heading into the 2024 season.

JJ Wetherholt: Of the five players highlighted, Wetherholt has the best combination of contact rates, plate discipline, and collegiate performance. It will be important to follow his batted ball data headed into the 2024 season, particularly looking at getting the ball in the air more against higher level velocity.

Travis Bazzana: While Bazzana may rank lower than Wetherholt in categories involving contact rate, he still ranks in a very high tier, performing better than Matt Shaw and Tommy Troy accross the board in contact+discipline, and ahead of Wilson and Wetherholt in batted ball performance heading into each others’ draft years. Should Bazzana continue to develop, he has the potential to have the optimized profile to surpass Wetherholt’s overall profile, even if Wetherholt may have a better current profile.