MLB Network insider Jon Heyman published a report Thursday morning indicating that teams such as the New York Mets and New York Yankees won’t be pursuing now free-agent pitcher Trevor Bauer.
Heyman also wrote that while there is “outside speculation” that one of Bauer’s former teams — the Cincinnati Reds — could welcome the 2020 NL Cy Young Award winner back, “one baseball decisionmaker opined that it would have to be a ‘team on another planet.'”
Bauer’s most recent team — the Los Angeles Dodgers — was unable to find a trade partner by Thursday’s 2 p.m. ET deadline, leading to his release and free agency.
Los Angeles owes the 31-year-old his remaining salary of $22.5 million in 2023 but will save the major league minimum of $720,000 if another team signs him, according to ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez. Bauer will turn 32 next week and hasn’t pitched since June 2021, when he first faced sexual assault allegations.
Last April, MLB handed down an unprecedented 324-game suspension to the right-hander for violation of the league’s domestic violence policy. Per Gonzalez, Bauer appealed the decision, and what followed was a “seven-month grievance process that ended with an independent arbitrator ruling Dec. 22 that Bauer’s suspension would be trimmed to 194 games and he would be reinstated immediately.”
The 2018 All-Star will be docked pay for the first 50 games of the 2023 campaign. After debuting with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2012 and pitching for Cleveland from 2013 to 2019, Bauer was traded to the Reds in July of that year and signed with the Dodgers in February 2021 on a three-year, $102 million contract.
In Heyman’s report, he writes that while “many baseball execs around the game might be happy to take a shot at such a great talent” it may be more of a question with the owners.
