Trevor Bauer Isn't Worth It

The Los Angeles Dodgers recently DFA'd Trevor Bauer after he was reinstated from his record-setting 194 game suspension for an active player. L.A. will also be paying Bauer the full $22.5MM he is owed for the 2023 season, making him available to any team willing to claim him off waivers, assuming he isn't traded since an acquiring team would inherit that salary, too. If he clears waivers, then Bauer would become a free agent.

There is going to be a lot of talk about Bauer over the next week around baseball, and some fans will be clamoring for their team to claim him off of waivers. I have seen some A's fans among that chorus.

If you can set aside the allegations, which are admittedly pretty hard to set aside, he would still be a pretty big gamble.

The last time he pitched in a big league game was on June 28, 2021. By the time opening day rolls around, he will have had just over 20 full months without throwing a pitch in a major league game. That is one heck of a layoff for any player, but if you throw in a little bit of rust with the scrutiny he'll be facing on a daily basis, he may not provide the results the pro-Bauer crowds are looking for.

In that same vein, he made just two starts after MLB's sticky stuff ban went into effect on June 21, 2021, and he combined for 12 innings, 13 hits, 5 walks, 5 earned runs allowed, and struck out 18. That is right in line with his career 3.79 ERA. That's roughly a league average pitcher--hardly worth the risk.

He'd posted ERAs of 1.73 en route to the 2020 Cy Young and had a 2.59 ERA in 2021 before he was initially suspended, but those were also in half seasons. In his last full season, 2019, he held a 4.48 ERA, and it was after that season that some have speculated that he started using sticky stuff, which led to his improved numbers in '20 and '21.

I've seen a number of people on social media say that their team could sign him (or claim him), and then flip him for a haul of prospects at the deadline.

Under normal circumstances, that would be a decent plan, but the added controversy to Bauer's name would drop that trade value real fast, even if he's performing well on the mound.

Not every team is going to be willing to take the PR hit for acquiring Bauer, and that controversy isn't going away. Plus, only teams in contention would be willing to even consider him in the first place, so it's not like every front office will be just waiting to trade their top prospects for him. Even if a team were willing to take the initial bad publicity and backlash from their own fans, and he ended up performing well, the reward of a prospect haul for those first few months of the season just isn't likely.

Don't get me wrong, prospects may be on the table, but I can't imagine any team would want to give up a difference-making prospect in exchange for Trevor Bauer. A team could expect something along the lines of a fourth outfielder in return is my guess, and if that's what a team is getting, why even sign him in the first place?

This entire situation is eerily similar to when the Houston Astros traded for Roberto Osuna while he was suspended 75 games for domestic violence charges because he was a good closer at a discounted price. He became a free agent following the 2020 season, and a mix of injury and his history led him to sign with a team in Japan last summer.

The hope here is that teams have learned from the Astros mistake.

Alden Gonzalez of ESPN talked to agents and GMs about the potential of teams signing Trevor Bauer, and their answers ranged from "I don't expect anyone will sign him" to "nobody is touching that guy. Not a chance."

My own stance is that I have always felt that he was a "me first" kind of player, trying to take the spotlight off other players around the league. These allegations, whether you believe them or not, are still serious, and instead of even going for the insincere "I'm sorry if my actions hurt anyone" route, he has decided to offer zero remorse, zero accountability, and instead promoted his vlog.

Regardless of what you think of him as a player or a person, that's not the kind of guy you want as a teammate. The sooner we don't have to think about him the better.