The Los Angeles Dodgers released Trevor Bauer last Friday, ending their affiliation with the pitcher after he served the longest suspension in the history of Major League Baseball’s joint domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse policy.
After designating Bauer for assignment Friday, the Dodgers had until Thursday’s 2 p.m. ET deadline to trade the right-hander and failed to do so. The team unconditionally released him Thursday and he becomes a free agent.
But the ramifications of Bauer’s short-lived tenure will continue to affect the franchise.
Bauer, 31, had his suspension for violating the policy reduced on Dec. 22 from 324 to 194 games by neutral arbitrator Martin Scheinman, reinstating him on Dec. 22 after serving the most time of any player since the policy went into effect in 2015. He had been the only player in the history of the policy to appeal Major League Baseball’s discipline.
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) January 7, 2023
Bauer was set to begin the final year of the three-year, $102 million deal he signed with Los Angeles prior to the 2021 season. He pitched in just 17 games for the Dodgers, and lost $37.5 million of that contract due to the suspension; he was docked 50 games’ worth of pay for the 2023 season.
In a statement Friday night, Bauer said, “While we were unable to communicate throughout the administrative leave and arbitration process, my representatives spoke to Dodgers leadership immediately following the arbitration decision. Following two weeks of conversations around my return to the organization, I sat down with Dodgers leadership in Arizona yesterday who told me that they wanted me to return and pitch for the team this year. While I am disappointed by the organization’s decision today, I appreciate the wealth of support I’ve received from the Dodgers clubhouse. I wish the players all the best and look forward to competing elsewhere.”
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The right-hander hasn’t appeared in a big league game since June 2021. He was placed on paid administrative leave that July, after a San Diego woman accused Bauer of sexual assault. The allegations stemmed from a pair of encounters that began as consensual and, the woman said, turned violent. Over the summer, two other women alleged similar interactions with Bauer in the past, as first reported by the Washington Post. The Los Angeles District Attorney’s office declined to bring charges against Bauer in February. Bauer has denied any wrongdoing.
“While we are pleased that Mr. Bauer has been reinstated immediately, we disagree that any discipline should have been imposed. Mr. Bauer looks forward to his return to the field, where his goal remains to help his team win a World Series,” Bauer’s agent, Rachel Luba, and representatives Jon Fetterolf and Shawn Holley said in a statement released after the arbitrator’s ruling.
Under its current policy, MLB can punish players even if they have not been charged with or convicted of a crime.
The Dodgers have operated with relative austerity this winter, shedding nearly $100 million off their payroll in the early weeks of the offseason as they braced for the arbiter’s decision. Their strategy has appeared clear: remain under baseball’s luxury tax threshold and reset some of the tax penalties they incurred in part due to their pursuit of Bauer in the first place so they could take another plunge in free agency.
Bauer’s contract remains guaranteed even after the Dodgers released him. He will still be owed $22.5 million for 2023, and that figure will still count toward the Dodgers’ luxury tax tabulations, which aren’t finalized until the end of the 2023 season. Any team that signs Bauer would only have to pay him the league minimum, saving the Dodgers just $720,000 in payroll should he be signed.
According to FanGraphs’ Roster Resource, the Dodgers’ current projected luxury tax figure is about $232.9 million, a hair below the first threshold of $233 million. That figure could go up and down as figures for arbitration-eligible players are finalized.
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Friday marked the end of a tenure that had been met with scrutiny from the outset, with a subset of fans noting Bauer’s questionable interactions on social media. Questions about his behavior extended onto the field at times, such as when he threw a baseball over the center-field fence when getting pulled from a game at the end of his Cleveland tenure.
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Upon his signing, Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman vouched for the organization’s vetting process, saying the online behavior was “something that we wanted to dig into” and that he and team president Stan Kasten had spoken to Bauer about it during the recruiting process.
“Hopefully over the last six-plus years, some trust and credibility has been built up, in terms of the research we do on players, the vetting process we go through,” Friedman said.
That credibility has been fractured after the signing ended following the largest suspension of its kind in league history, one of several questions Friedman and the organization will be left to answer now that the franchise has severed ties with Bauer.
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(Photo: Meg Oliphant / Getty Images)