Friday afternoon news broke that quite possibly the biggest name in the free agent market, and most certainly the most polarizing name in baseball, starting pitcher Trevor Bauer had made his long-awaited decision as to which team he will be joining. But it wasn’t made without controversy, so to say, and some may say the ultimate asshole troll move. Let’s break down the wild 48 hours it was Thursday and Friday.
Thursday afternoon, news going around the baseball world was that the Bauer Sweepstakes was down to 2 teams. No teams were necessarily named, but people figured that one of the two teams had to be Dodgers or Mets. But word starting going around that, in fact, the Mets and Dodgers were the final 2 teams standing. How did we know that there were 2 teams left? Bauer’s agent, Rachel Luba tweeting a very obvious tweet.
However, someone didn’t tell notorious reporter/insider Bob Nightengale that there were 2 teams left and no agreement was made. I say this because 3 hours after Rachel Luba tweeted that the Bauer Sweepstakes were down to 2, Bob tweeted that Bauer and Mets have agreed to a deal.
Now, this caused a chain of events to occur. First, agent Rachel Luba contradicted the tweet with a simple response.
Nightengale’s tweet was obviously taken as truth to some extant, and Mets fans had gotten their hopes up. But, if you’re a diehard baseball fan and no reporters by name then you know that Bob is notorious for getting news wrong all the time. Bob said that when Bryce Harper was a free agent, that it was down to the Dodgers and Phillies, which were true but he had Dodgers as the favorite and Phillies as the big underdog.
This past summer, during the trade deadline, Bob said that the Padres were no longer the favorites to acquire Mike Clevinger from Cleveland.
https://twitter.com/BNightengale/status/1300231605043093509
Anyways, this lead to Bauer making a big troll move and making Mets fans think that he was going to Queens. On the link tree on his Instagram bio, he “leaked” that on his website he was selling Mets merch.
Obviously this was a calculated move by Trevor to (1) get Mets fans hopes up, (2) get Mets fans to buy merch from him directly, and (3) to make Bob look more like a bigger idiot, when his decision become public. Then Friday afternoon, when everyone was expecting nothing to happen, Jon Heyman tweets that Bauer is a Dodger.
Now, just like with Nightengale, whenever Heyman tweets news, you have to take it with a grain of salt. Unless its news regarding a Scott Boras client. I say that because Heyman always tweets something that puts Boras clients in a favorable position. But alas, Jeff Passan confirmed the news with contract details.
This is a big get for the Dodgers, as it solidifies our rotation for the next 3 years. Not that we needed Bauer, as we have 6 other starters as options, but it doesn’t hurt us, especially with Padres bolstering their rotation with Blake Snell and Yu Darvish. I gotta say, our rotation has to be the best in all of baseball, with 3 former Cy Young award winners in Clayton Kershaw, David Price, and now Trevor Bauer, and we have 3 of the best up and coming pitchers in Walker Buehler, Julio Urias, and Dustin May. Now Lets break down the contract.
First and foremost, Bauer’s agent did her job with getting him the highest AAV contract for a pitcher ever, which I’m sure that was on top of Bauer’s priority list. Now holy fuck what a contract Bauer got. The guy is the highest paid player for 2021 and 2022 with earning $40 million and $45 million respectively. In 2021, Bauer is currently set to make more than 3 MLB teams have on their payroll.
Talk about an embarrassment. Those 3 teams should be ashamed. I feel bad for those fans. Owners are quite literally spitting in their faces by the way of not willing to put a quality ball club.
Back to Bauer’s contract, he has opt outs after the first 2 years, so if he has another year this year like he had last, I expect him to opt out. But, I only expect him to opt out, if he for sure knows that he will get a contract as big as $45 million. I for sure expect him to opt out after the second year because he wouldn’t want to make $17 million. Now, I’ve seen on twitter about how Mets dodged a bullet not having to “overpay” for Bauer. Do I think Dodgers over paid Bauer? Absolutely. But I would much rather pay him $85 million to $102 million for 2-3 years than get stuck with a monstrosity of a contract of an aging player. We are overpaying for the prime years of Bauer than get stuck with him on a long term contract that will see him decline drastically. Plus, by the time Bauer’s contract is over, whether he stays the full 3 years or opts out after year 1 or 2, Dodgers will be able to pay Corey Seager and Cody Bellinger when its time to pay them.
As for Bauer choosing Dodgers over Mets even though Mets reportedly offered more money, I think more went into Trevor’s decision than just money. Trevor is all about growing the game and growing his media company, Momentum. So I believe spring training location played a big part. I am sure he prefers Spring Training in Arizona as opposed to Florida because, in Arizona, Spring Training sites are a lot closer than they are in Florida, and because of that, he is able to make a lot of content with a lot of players from different teams. People are also saying that he wanted to choose his hometown team, I disagree. I watch Trevor’s vlog on Momentum’s YouTube channel, and he doesn’t live in Los Angeles anymore. He lives in Houston. So, I think what went into his decision was, higher AAV, opt outs being included, Spring Training location and whether the team is a contender year in and year out.
So, welcome Trevor to the Dodgers and lets repeat this year.
