A former Cy Young Award winner in his prime can probably be had for the bargain-basement price of $720,000, a steal of a deal for a team looking to fortify its rotation on the cheap and willing to ignore the fine print. 스포츠토토
Trevor Bauer comes with some baggage, a violation of baseball’s sexual assault and domestic violence policy that netted him a 194-game suspension, pending legal cases in which he has sued six parties for defamation and a 19-month absence from professional baseball.
But with the Dodgers deciding on Friday to cut ties with Bauer rather than face the potential backlash of retaining him, they will likely have to pay most of his $22.5-million salary for 2023, allowing another team to sign the 32-year-old right-hander for the major league minimum of $720,000.
Bauer was technically designated for assignment, meaning the Dodgers will have seven days — until Thursday — to trade him, at which point the right-hander must be placed on unconditional release waivers. If no team claims him, he will become a free agent on Friday.
But it’s hard to imagine another team interested in Bauer would give up much value in a trade when they can sign him as a free agent.
The question then becomes, will another team buy?
“It’s probably a [public relations] nightmare for any team to try to approach this and touch it,” former pitcher David Cone, a five-time World Series champion who is a YES Network and ESPN “Sunday Night Baseball” announcer, said on the “Toeing the Slab” podcast on Tuesday.
“I mean, I don’t know what happened. I just know what I’ve read, and it’s ugly. That type of abuse and what’s alleged against him is just mind-boggling. That being said, he went through due process. He was not [criminally] charged. And on the pitching side, he’s a savant.”
Indeed, Bauer, a former UCLA standout who was the third pick in the 2011 draft, was always ahead of the curve in terms of training techniques and the use of analytics, his cutting-edge approach and work ethic helping him develop into one of baseball’s most accomplished pitchers through the first half of 2021.