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Super-star Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher, Trevor Bauer, was placed on administrative leave by Major League Baseball in July of 2021 after allegations of sexual assault rose and become national headlines.
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Bauer was suspended a whopping 324 games by Major League Baseball, which was later reduced to 194 after an appeal. After his suspension was up, the Los Angeles Dodgers made the decision to cut him from the team, and he has been pitching in Japan ever since.
Two years later, after being cleared of all charges in February of 2022, Bauer breaks his silence on the situation after he and his accuser, Lindsey Hill, settled a lengthy defamation lawsuit.
What does this now mean for the future of Bauer's MLB career? Is he no longer blacklisted? Will teams still feel comfortable taking a chance on him? Not so fast... there are still quite a few issues with Trevor Bauer's reputation that stand in the way of him making a comeback to a Major League Baseball mound.
First things first, this isn't the end of Bauer's legal battles with accusers. The pitcher is still in the midst of another defamation suit with a separate woman from Arizona, who accused him of holding a knife to her throat and choking her until she passed out during a rape that resulted in her becoming pregnant in 2020.
If that's not bad enough, Bauer's professional conduct isn't something to be taken lightly either. Aside from his notorious feud with New York Yankees ace Gerrit Cole during their time together as teammates at UCLA, Bauer's pro baseball career didn't get off to the hottest start.
During the 2011 MLB Draft, the Seattle Mariners had the second selection and were keeping an eye on Bauer. Bauer told the Mariners that he would not play for them unless they signed him to a $20 million deal, three times the amount of the previous record for a drafted player. Bauer instead went third overall the Arizona Diamondbacks, and signed for $7.3 million, but only after the D-Backs agreed to let him workout his own way. This included playing catch from across the field, at 450 feet, which worried teams that his routine might result in an elbow injury. Many of his teammates in Arizona at the time reported that Bauer regularly butted heads with management, and that he was a "loner" who refused any advice or training from his coaches or teammates. His time with the Diamondbacks also featured a public rivalry with the team's catcher, Miguel Montero. Montero accused Bauer of "never listening" and "didn't want to learn."
18 months after being drafted, Arizona had enough, and traded Bauer to the Cleveland Indians. How did Bauer respond? He literally dropped a diss track on Miguel Montero and the Arizona Diamondbacks. Even though Bauer has denied that his song is aimed toward anyone in particular, it's pretty clear who he's throwing shade at.
His time in Cleveland was described as "24 players, plus Trevor," one of his teammates said that "Trevor thinks about Trevor a lot," which all culminated in the infamous "drone incident," which saw Bauer cut his pitching hand while trying to repair one of his drones, causing him to miss his Game 2 start of the 2016 ALCS against the Toronto Blue Jays. Bauer tried to make his start in Game 3, but his injury re-opened and he had to be taken out of the game because his hand would not stop bleeding.
Bauer did all this while harassing a female baseball fan over Twitter because she Tweeted saying that he was her least favorite player. Bauer Tweeted at her over eighty times, and used her photos to try and expose her for underage drinking. After being traded to the Cincinnati Reds in 2019, Cleveland's manager, Terry Francona, publicly stated that he was worried about the Indians clubhouse had Bauer stayed with the team. Despite all of this controversy, teammates Mike Clevinger, Corey Kluber and Shane Bieber reported close professional relationships with Bauer.
Cincinnati is really where Bauer cemented himself as one of the game's best pitchers, which eventually lead to a 3-year, $102 million deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers in free-agency. Bauer officially had the highest salary in the history of Major League Baseball.
During his very short time with the Dodgers, Bauer had public feuds with Jose Ramirez, Ronald Acuna, Fernando Tatis Jr, Alex Bregman, Marcus Stroman, agent Scott Boras, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, journalist Ken Rosenthal, and a few of his own teammates.
Even recently, in Japan, Bauer had public conflict with a teammate who had a problem with his samurai sword celebration, calling it "disrespectful" and "racist."
Bauer's agent, Rachel Luba, spoke out via Twitter on the situation after Bauer's video was dropped.
"Without the Court process, Trevor never would have had all the information that was concealed from him. Proud of you @baueroutage for fighting for the truth and always maintaining your integrity, even when it would have been much easier to give them the money they were after all along. Nobody should ever have to go through what you went through just to be able to clear their name."
- Rachel Luba via Twitter
So what do we think? Trevor Bauer boasts a career 3.79 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, 21.1 WAR, 83-69 win loss record, and 1,416 strikeouts over 1,297.2 innings pitched. Although Bauer has been cleared of one allegation, is the rest of his baggage worth bringing onto an MLB roster? Will we see Trevor Bauer pitching in America next season? Which teams might take the risk of bringing a known locker room cancer into the mix? Or am I just being unfair to him?
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