There are a lot of opinions, some of them very strong, about Cincinnati Reds pitcher Trevor Bauer. Love him, hate him, indifferent about him – he likes to have a good time. And without baseball taking place, he’s been pouring a lot of his time that isn’t spent training into his youtube channels (Momentum, Trevor Bauer’s personal channel). Late last week he mixed both of those things when he and teammate Derek Dietrich met up in the desert for some live batting practice that they recorded from multiple angles.
If you didn’t watch the video yet, you should. And here’s your spoiler alert now – so if you want to know the results before you continue reading, stop now and hit play on the video.
In the interaction between the two Cincinnati Reds teammates, it is Trevor Bauer that came out ahead. That’s not too surprising, though. Bauer, as a pitcher, is almost always going to have an advantage over a hitter who hasn’t seen live, high-end pitching in a while like the case is for Dietrich.
Speaking of Derek Dietrich – he’s one of the players who could benefit the most from the expanded rosters in 2020 that may be as large as 30 players. After his second half last season he was on the fringes of making the 26-man roster with a solid or better spring. With a few extra roster spots available his chances likely increased – though he’ll still have some work to do in whatever iteration of “spring” training we see this year.
I find Trevor Bauer to be a compelling observer of baseball in general, and pitching in particular. His approach is completely deliberate – everything he does has been thought through and is the result of a conscious decision. In many cases I find that he has carefully considered details of pitching and preparing to be an effective pitcher that I’ve never even thought about. That’s interesting to me. Do I agree with his every viewpoint? No. Is he always interesting and thought provoking? Yes. And am I hoping he’s pitching for the Reds next year and beyond? Absolutely.
Completely agree. He’s an interesting guy.
Very entertaining!
I hope he stays with Reds as well. He plays with his brain as much as his body.
His pitching and training discussion with Lorenzen was also a great video to watch if one want to see the details of pitching and trying to make adjustments for ever increasing velocity.
I was not too pleased when Bauer came over from the Indians, but my opinion has changed. He’s obviously a smart guy (UCLA) and it appears he’s prepping for his after baseball career as a sports commentator.