National League 2020 Cy Young Prize winner Trevor Bauer has agreed to join the Los Angeles Dodgers, with the California native announcing his move in a YouTube video on Friday.
Bauer and the Dodgers are in agreement on a three-year, $ 102 million deal that has an opt-out after years 1 and 2, sources told Jeff Passan of ESPN. Bauer is expected to earn $ 40 million in 2021 and $ 45 million in 2022, the sources said.
Bauer, who has a notable online presence, seemed to provoke his fate on Friday by offering a toast for an autographed Dodgers cap on his website – although he also had several brief references to the New York Mets, considered the other finalist, on the website also.
Sources told Passan that the Mets offered a higher overall value than the Dodgers, but the Los Angeles offer will make him the highest-paid player in each of the next two seasons.
Bauer, a 30-year-old right-hand man, was the first Cy Young Award winner to join as a free agency since Greg Maddux in 1992.
A rookie free agent who played last season for the Cincinnati Reds in a $ 17 million deal prorated to $ 6.4 million, Bauer was one of baseball’s most dominant pitchers in 2020, going 5-4 with an ERA of 1.73, a WHIP, 100 kills and 17 hikes during the shortened pandemic season. The opposing hitters hit 0.159 against him, which took all the major league pitchers. In addition to WHIP and ERA, Bauer led NL in ERA-plus, which adjusts to its hitter-friendly home stadium and hits allowed by nine entries (5,055) in 2020.
He rejected a $ 18.9 million one-year qualification offer from the Reds, which will have a compensatory draft choice with him signing with a new team.
Now Bauer joins a Dodgers spin that was one of the best majors in 2020 and now has three former Cy Young winners in Bauer, Clayton Kershaw and David Price. Last season, the Dodgers were first in WHIP and second in ERA, opponent’s batting average and opponent’s OPS.
Bauer’s arsenal includes a variety of shots, and he had great success with his fast ball cut when launching a two-game submission at NL-high last season. According to ESPN Stats & Information, Bauer prepared batters to eliminate them in the outer half of the plate, leading the NL with 63 eliminations, while keeping the batters at a batting average of 0.145 at that location.
Off the mound, Bauer voiced opinions and criticisms on everything from Commissioner Rob Manfred to the MLB-MLBPA negotiations and insinuating that Houston Astros pitchers were applying substances to baseballs to increase rotation speed. In 2018, Bauer was fined for throwing a baseball from the mound over the central court fence before being removed from a game. In 2016, he was streaked out of game 2 of the American League Championship Series after cutting off his fingertip while maintaining his drone.
The Reds acquired Bauer in a deal with the Cleveland Indians in the July 2019 deadline. He made 10 games after the deal that year, going 2-5 with an ERA of 6.39 for the Reds.
In nine seasons, since he entered the major championships with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2012, Bauer has 75-64 with 1,279 eliminations and an ERA of 3.90. His only All-Star selection came in 2018.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.