The Los Angeles Dodgers reached an agreement with Trevor Bauer, the current National League Cy Young Prize winner, on a three-year contract worth $ 102 million. The offer contains deactivations after the 2021 and 2022 seasons, by Mark Feinsand of MLB.com. Bauer is designed to be the highest paid player in the game in each of the next two campaigns.
Bauer, who studied at UCLA, was reduced to two teams – the New York Mets and defending champion Dodgers – before finally making his decision as a free agency on Friday to return home to Southern California. The Mets offered more money to try to seduce Bauer by choosing the Dodgers, according to Joel Sherman of the New York Post. Bauer accessed his YouTube channel to make the announcement:
Bauer, 30, was rated by CBS Sports as the third best available free agent entering the off-season, as well as the main general holder. Here’s what we were writing at the time:
Going into the 2020 season, Bauer’s career numbers maintained an incredible resemblance to those posted by AJ Burnett during the same period of his career. He created the split this season, accumulating an ERA of 1.73 and a 5.88 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 11 matches and 73 innings. Bauer has long had the material and, according to his press clippings, the intelligence to be a frontline holder. He has now gathered the results that support this idea in two of the past three seasons. Can he continue? This is one of the few questions that teams will have to answer, starting with how he improved his rotation rate just a few years after suggesting that this was only possible with substance use. Another is whether it is compatible in a long-term business. Bauer has fallen from grace in both Arizona and Cleveland, and has not always covered himself with glory on social media. Time changes mood with the same certainty that Sturgill changes words; if Bauer wants to follow suit, turning his perception into a team leader in every sense of the term, then he will need to do more than continue to pitch well.
It is important to note that in 2019 Bauer tweeted more than 80 times about a college student, who reported his behavior to Twitter and the Cleveland organization, which employed Bauer at the time. The student later told USA Today that she was uncomfortable with his behavior.
Bauer joins a Dodgers rotation that includes Walker Buehler, Clayton Kershaw and a comeback from David Price. The Dodgers need to find out who between Julio Urias, Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin will be their fifth starter.
Over the past three seasons, Bauer started 72 games and accumulated 3.18 ERA (144 ERA +) and a 3.68 strikeout walk ratio. He posted an ERA of 1.73 in 2020, all the time averaging more than six entries per game with the Cincinnati Reds. In addition to his season and a half with the Reds, Bauer also spent time at the Cleveland and Arizona Diamondbacks. He made an All-Star team and received consideration for the Cy Young Award twice. Since 2018, he ranks sixth in the ERA, fourth on average for opponents and fifth in eliminations.
Bauer is the first big addition that the Dodgers made this off-season. Previously, Andrew Friedman limited himself to adding pieces to the bullpen, exchanging for Corey Knebel and signing the injured Tommy Kahnle in a multi-year pact. The Dodgers have yet to address openings in third base and left field, as Justin Turner remains a free agent and Joc Pederson has signed with the Chicago Cubs.
The highest average annual value ever delivered to a pitcher remains the $ 36 million given to Gerrit Cole in the low season. Bauer’s $ 34 million AAV comes in third, also behind the $ 35 million AAV that Stephen Strasburg received last winter.