MLB suspends Trevor Bauer for 2 years with no pay
- Thread starter ThePrideofShiner
- Start date
Yiiiiiiikes. Well, I just hope he doesn't hurt anybody else — or spark an international incident.
I think it's very gross that he's doing this but has there ever been a more talented American pitcher to go to the Japanese League? I'm fascinated to see what his numbers will be, even with his time away from baseball. Does Japan use different balls / allow tacky surfaces?
He is Japanese, but Tanaka went back to Japan for his year 32 season (same as Bauer), as NY didn’t want him anymore (FB was increasingly unusable), and he didn’t want to pitch anywhere else in MLB. He’s had two strong seasons there since returning.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/t/tanakma01.shtml
So - he’s still being paid by the Dodgers ? Or does this deal get them off the hook? And if not that’s yet another scummy thing by Bauer actually demanding and getting the 4m. He clearly has no shame.
$28 million guaranteed form LA. I wouldn’t say he is “demanding“ money from Yokohama. He is being paid for one year of pitching for them. No one plays for free…anywhere.
It’s scummy on the team, not gonna throw another rock at Bauer for taking money to do the thing he does. If someone casts Cosby in a movie, you don’t blame Bill.
Except that Bauer hasn’t been convicted of any crimes. Only in the court of public opinion.
He's got freckles like Morgan Freeman. He could play Red's brother in Return to Shawshank.
The difference between this case and others like it is that even if you believe Bauer’s account, he’s a terrible person.
Agree with @Marciano490 that you can’t expect a free man not to earn a living. And I don’t know what the culture is like in Japan on these issues, so I’ll reserve judgment on the club. I’m just glad Bauer won’t be pitching here.
Wholly unsurprised that this is how it played out. I was hoping for California Penal League as RR said upthread but, oh well. Most of the press in Japanese is full of excitement for his arrival.
This article https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/3d6532fc11772787cfdff6f19d1c23297923dddb spends exactly one sentence on "allegations of assault against a woman." His comments about it being his dream to play here, and becoming the only pitcher to win both a Cy Young and a Sawamura Award (NPB equivalent-ish) are being reported at face value. It will be a complete non-issue for him here, which is disappointing but predictable.
I think @jon abbey 's example of Tanaka is probably as close as you'll get of someone coming from the US to pitch here, especially still in something resembling their prime. So I think the answer to your question is no. As to the bolded, I'm disheartened to learn that an active, longtime member of this board doesn't know the answer to this!
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/06/23/sports/hirokazu-sawamura-has-simple-solution-mlbs-sticky-situation-better-baseball/
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14804203
...so that's a yes, Japan uses different balls. They are very very slightly smaller, and are pre-tacked and thus stickier, generally leading to pitchers who've used both to say the NPB ones are easier to control.
My expectations for Bauer here numbers-wise are that he'll dominate and everything other than his K-rates will be as good as or better than his MLB numbers.
Since it sounds like no one in Japan will really care about the assault allegations, I am curious why he only received 1/$4M. That doesn't seem like very much for someone who will presumably be one of the best pitchers in the NPB, but I don't know what Japanese players typically make either. Is this a high salary there?
He's only thrown 180 innings since 2020... he could be dominant but there's definitely some rust/ability questions after 2022. He was working out and mowing down people on YouTube videos but that doesn't necessarily translate into retained skills when you're doing it against college or worse talent.
Well, I'll be rooting for his failure. He is 32 and has an odd but effective career: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/bauertr01.shtml
Seems like he oscillates between good and great - with the homer suppression being key. Even his micro 2020 campaign was half impressive, and half very-meh.
It's actually less than that - 1/JPY 400M which is about 1/3. Nevertheless that will make him the 11th highest paid player in the country and the 5th highest paid pitcher (the #'s are in 10,000's of yen/year). Though I heard there are some incentive clauses for more. So it's a fair amount of money for someone who comes with quite a few question marks.
From his perspective, he's not hurting for money anyway and my guess is he assumes he can do his penance here for a year, collect a few bucks, rehab his image, and make his way back to the bigs next year.
His YouTube and TikTok have been really good for helping my little guy pitch. I created an account just for pitching tips and his seem to be the ones that he’ll come back and reference.
Example: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTR7yHrbf/
He made his debut for Yokohama a couple of days ago. 4 IP, 0R, 6 K.
I fear that if he pitches well there a MLB team will take a chance on bringing him back over.
I fear that if he pitches well there a MLB team will take a chance on bringing him back over.
And if it isn’t Boston and he beats the Sox, there will be screams here for Chaim’s head.
Disagree. I don't get the sense that anyone here wants this asshole anywhere near the team.
Watch them come out of the woodwork. You'd be shocked how seemingly rational people can have a tizzy when they think their fandom has been compromised for any reason
I didn't say a majority, but there will be complaints that the Sox didn't get him.
Wait for it . . . I hope he doesn't sign with anyone in MLB and it never happens and then no one has to be wrong
I’m still working through my anger at the people I imagined wanted the Pats to sign Watson.
That wasn't his debut - that was a tune-up start for the farm team. He has yet to pitch in an NPB game, but is expected to make his debut soon.
Edit: Actually, looks like he's making another farm start tomorrow (story in Japanese) and is expected to join the BayStars in early May. His previous start was early in the morning and only had about 2600 fans there, but the article speculates that tomorrow's venue and the Saturday afternoon start time should see a ton of fans show up for "Bauer Fever." Blech.
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I feel like we are watching a not-very-funny reboot of Eastbound & Down.
What is that even supposed to be?
I'm never one to say a player shouldn't express themselves, especially in triumph, but getting a guy to chase an 0-2 breaking ball in the dirt to end the first inning of a 0-0 game hardly seems worth a fist pump, let alone whatever the hell that is.
I'm never one to say a player shouldn't express themselves, especially in triumph, but getting a guy to chase an 0-2 breaking ball in the dirt to end the first inning of a 0-0 game hardly seems worth a fist pump, let alone whatever the hell that is.
As did I. Of course, he will now play the victim about this whole thing as all red-ass shitheels must.
The big difference: Kenny Powers was an asshole and a bad person, but he was at least likable most of the time.
It looks like Carrieri took his translation (without attribution) from that Yakyu Cosmopolitan guy on Twitter that I and others have linked to often in the NPB thread. He's usually great, but I disagree slightly with his translation on this one. Yamasaki's original comments are not directed solely or perhaps even primarily at Bauer. He does certainly seem to think the gesture itself is disrespectful, and the fact that he wrote "no respect" all in katakana (ie, basically in English rather than in Japanese) is telling. But the first line is going after the BayStars' official team Twitter account, telling them not to instigate/rock the boat with this kind of thing.
Yamasaki (who is the BayStars closer btw) has since apologized for his comments and said he'll discuss it with the team. I think this brief exchange is a good examination of the original tweet -- 5 or 6 tweets back and forth if you click through -- ending with one showing the BayStars team store already trying to sell a bunch of Bauer Sword t-shirts and stuff:
View: https://twitter.com/thehanshintiger/status/1653001774951981057?s=20
Yamasaki (who is the BayStars closer btw) has since apologized for his comments and said he'll discuss it with the team. I think this brief exchange is a good examination of the original tweet -- 5 or 6 tweets back and forth if you click through -- ending with one showing the BayStars team store already trying to sell a bunch of Bauer Sword t-shirts and stuff:
View: https://twitter.com/thehanshintiger/status/1653001774951981057?s=20