On July 28, 2019, Cleveland Indians manager Terry Francona walked to the mound to initiate a pitching change. The man on the mound did not take the news well. Incensed, he reared back and heaved the ball from the mound all the way over the center field wall in Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium. Francona was not amused with this outburst and publicly admonished him in a postgame interview. The pitcher would be gone three days later, dealt to the Cincinnati Reds. But this pitcher was no ordinary League Average Innings Muncher. He was a uniquely polarizing figure in a sport that has vanishingly few recognizable names to the casual viewer: a man named Trevor Andrew Bauer.
Throughout his amateur and professional career, Bauer has never been a stranger to controversy. A star at UCLA, he openly feuded with teammate and fellow future big leaguer Gerrit Cole; an unconfirmed report stated that Cole told Bauer that he would never make it to the majors. The third overall pick of the 2011 MLB draft by Arizona, Bauer clashed with Arizona Diamondbacks management over his unusual and unconventional training methods, particularly his use of technology and obsessive focus on analytics. He was traded to Cleveland after the 2012 season, where he would develop into one of the game’s better starting pitchers.
Bauer had a fairly pedestrian second half of the 2019 season after being dealt to the Reds, but he absolutely dominated the shortened 2020 season. Bauer had the lowest earned run average in the National League at 1.73, had the second lowest walks and hit per inning pitched at 0.8, and second highest strikeouts per nine innings, at 12.3. Bauer won his first NL Cy Young award, given annually to the league’s best pitcher. Bauer also made a different kind of history in 2019, founding the sports media company Momentum, the first-ever player-created media company to be credentialed by Major League Baseball. During the COVID-affected 2020 season, Bauer routinely vlogged his experiences during the year, giving fans a unique inside look at the toils of a baseball season. Bauer is also known for being active on social media, frequently interacting with fans (and occasionally arguing with them).
Bauer entered free agency after the 2020 season. The Reds’ initial plan when trading for him was to hopefully make the playoffs at least one of the two Octobers they had him contract for and use the revenue from ticket sales to re-sign him; obvious circumstances prevented this from happening. Therefore, Bauer was one of the hottest commodities on the market this past offseason, and he routinely gave updates on his free agency online with his agent Rachel Luba. There was much speculation as to where Bauer would end up; some wondered if a team would take a risk on someone whose off-the-field antics could be viewed as a distraction. On Feb. 4, 2021, USA Today MLB reporter Bob Nightengale reported that Bauer and the Mets were “close” to a deal; this turned out not to be true (sorry, Mets fans).
On Feb. 5, Bauer made the stunning announcement via his YouTube channel that he was signing with the defending World Series champion, the Los Angeles Dodgers. A team with an embarrassment of riches got even richer, as it was the first time since Roger Clemens was traded to the New York Yankees in February of 1999 that a reigning Cy Young winner went to the defending champs. With his ostentatious personality and savvy use of social media being transplanted to the entertainment capital of the world, one has to figure that Bauer will continue to be a lightning rod of attention for years to come.