The New York Mets have reportedly made a record offer to Trevor Bauer according to Bob Nightengale of USA Today. The deal isn’t for a record total amount of money, but according to Nightengale would set a record for the average annual value of the teal. Gerrit Cole currently makes $36,000,000 per season, which is tops in all of baseball. His deal is also for nine years. It’s not expected for Bauer to get a deal that long.
In 2020 Trevor Bauer took a big step forward. He found additional spin rate on all of his pitches, starting in the final month of 2019 and carrying over into 2020 and he was simply a different pitcher than he had been in previous seasons. Given what he’s said in the past about the only way he could add that kind of spin to his pitches, it would seem that Bauer began using some sort of substance to increase how much spin he was getting on the baseball. It led to a Cy Young Award, the first ever in the history of the Cincinnati Reds franchise, thanks to a league best 1.73 ERA in his 73.0 innings that saw him strike out 100 batters with just 17 walks.
While it seems that Major League Baseball doesn’t care much about whether or not pitchers are using pine tar or other substances to increase their grip, and their spin rates, unless it’s painfully obvious that it’s happening, the Mets and other teams aren’t exactly happy with Trevor Bauer’s past harassment of women on social media. Nightengale notes that the Mets are “evaluating all aspects of Bauer’s strong social media presence”.
The deal has reportedly been on the table for weeks according to Nightengale. But as this article was being typed up, Jon Heyman of MLB Network reported that no offer has been made that would give Bauer the highest average salary in history, but that the Mets are interested in bringing the right-handed starter in.
There hasn’t been much talk about the Reds still being “in” on Trevor Bauer. The team mentioned they would have liked to bring him back when the offseason began. However, with the expected cost – either a very high dollar per year, short term offer, or a long term deal that gets into the 9-figure range, Cincinnati wasn’t expected to really be in contention to bring back the top pitcher in the National League.
How about a crazy take for a crazy time? Bauer actually wants to come back to the Reds and Boddy’s mentoring; but, the Reds won’t/ haven’t offered up enough money to make it a respectable sane choice?
I guess that as Reds fans, we can take comfort that when he actually does sign it is going to be for enough to get the Reds the maximum compensation pick return.
Maybe the possibility of his return is holding up other Reds actions. But practically speaking, Bauer could sign for $10-15M more than the Reds QO. I don’t think Bauer returning has ever been likely. And I’m sure I’m an outlier but $25-30M+ for a pitcher that goes every five days just doesn’t make sense to me. For an everyday player, Lindor, Betts, Trout, sure open the wallet but not for a pitcher. But obviously, the baseball world doesn’t see money the same way, hence contracts like Cole.
I’ll be shcocked if Bauer doesn’t get more than $35 million on a one year deal. I’m with you…I don’t see the economic sense in paying any pitcher that much money.
But, if the Yankees can pay Cole $36 million a year for NINE years…..there’s surely some team out there that will go 2 or 3 at 40 per year for Bauer.
If I am an agent, with the pending labor Armageddon, I’m telling my guys to sign for the biggest front end (signing bonus/ 1st year salary) and be done with it. I don’t for a New York minute think the Reds can or should play in that pool on Bauer.
But I do think Bauer is waiting and hoping somebody else gets in (and not necessarily for more money). Him maybe wanting it to be the Reds and it ever being the Reds are two very different things.
Not necessarily with Bauer but just in general, if the Reds can get an equity stake in FoxSportsOhio as part of their TV deal, why couldn’t a player get an equity stake in a team as part of his contract?
In my fantasy thought, the player would have to hold the stake for at least the term of the contract. The minimum value of the stake at the contract end would be guaranteed to be the value at the time it was granted. The ownership would have right of first refusal on any subsequent sale.
I would wonder if there aren’t rules from prohibiting an active player from being an owner. There’s certainly some issues that could arise from a player being an owner of a team.
@Doug, You are likely correct on the prohibitions. The scheme just seems like a way for teams like the Reds to occasionally play in the deep end. The teams could leverage the buyback as a loan from the former player and agree to whatever length of payback at whatever rate they agreed upon.
As Doug, and others, have noted, there’s now a whiff of the “online harassment” scandal surfacing. Could be a negotiating tactic, and could also be a serious consideration, especially for the Mets concerning their most recent transactions.
Still an extreme long shot, but there’s a reverse of the Chapman scenario here – namely, Bauer is lowballed in FA/collusion/COVIDbudgeting, and Jim W’s comment above comes into play. Doubtful the Reds are willing to even get to that figure, but they did set a floor with the Qualifying offer.
Reds need to move ahead to replace Bauer. It is a shame that Reds fans never had a chance to cheer for him in person. I would like to hear what the team thinks of Lodolo. Carl Edwards Jr. could be a rebound candidate out of the pen.
It just makes me sad that we can’t keep any top notch player recently. The only one I can think of when we signed him was Votto lately. Which I am pleased we did he has had a very nice overall career thus far. Sure there has been some down times and a year or two of less production but if you didn’t think that was going to happen when he got older than I don’t know what to tell ya.
Not sure we’ve had many top-notch players of late. Couldn’t or didn’t keep Cueto…big mistake to pick Bailey over him. Maybe let Chapman go. Bruce and Frazier were respectable, maybe could have got more for them, but neither were Hall of Fame bound. Suarez?? we still got him, hope he turns last season around.
An off-season question tangentially related to the article: It seems like baseball players move from team to team much more readily than they do in the NFL and NBA. Is that accurate? Besides shorter careers, what are the reasons?
I don’t follow either the NFL nor the NBA; so, I can’t begin to say whether your feeling might be accurate. However if it is, I would say it is first because the NBA and NFL both have a salary cap. Thus there often simply not any real financial advantage to be found in changing teams. Also players get to free agency eligibility quicker in other sports; and, this leads to the core players being signed to more lucrative longer term contracts earlier on in their careers.
These systems result in a quicker culling of fringe and even midrange players than in MLB which happens with MLB during the arbitration years. For whatever reasons, the culled players in MLB seem to hang around bouncing from team to team while in the other sports, their careers, at least at the top level are more often done. Sounds counter intuitive but, I believe this is the case.
See Brad Hand signed with the Nationals $10.5 over 4 years, $4 million this year the rest over the next 3 years.
Simeion is gone. Galvis is gone. Shortstop options are down to Gregorious and Simmons.
Simmons to Twins
If reds fans each put up one thousand dollars to add to the attempt to retain Bauer… forget it, we still wouldn’t have enough money to retain him.
Looking more and more like Farmer is the starting SS
Farmer will be a positive offensively at shortstop. Defensively ?
Freddy Glavis signed with Baltimore – I guess Farmer is the shortstop. Please find a way to sign Simmons.
Simmon’s gone its down to Didi or bust. Perhaps Correa can be had from Houston or Story. But I just don’t see this happening. Toronto has so many players I am interested in watching. I am so frustrated with this team. (Reds)
The JTR signing in Philly may make them a less likely landing spot for Didi. They can slide Segura to SS with Kingery at 2B.
Simmons to Twins. Opening Day SS is Kyle Farmer.
Simmons to the Twinkies, 1-year for $10.5M …
We weren’t offering at least that much?
Simmons to the Twins. Didi or a trade to fill the hole at short and add a bat to the order- yikes.
If the Reds couldn’t afford 10.5 Mil for Simmons they sure as heck cant afford Didi. Galvis got 1.5 mil and that is probably to much for the Reds. The tire kicking Reds.
Mediocre front office and lousy field management, my guess is these guys didn’t want to play for the Reds. My guess is Didi goes back to Philly.
Who said they couldn’t afford Simmons? May have not thought he was worth that much with Didi still out there. You are assuming the worse.
Maybe he didn’t want to come to Cincinnati. Would rather play for a contender and stay in AL.
Simmons to the Twins
The Blue Jays were in the market for a MI. Luckily the SS they signed was Semien. The Dodgers were interested in Semien and if the Blue Jays signed Simmons and the Dodgers signed Semien the Reds may have been out of luck at SS
The way I see it teams either need a SS or are in the market for a SS.
Oakland, Texas, Philadelphia and Cincinnati.
I don’t think the A’s or Rangers are really looking to sign Didi. That leaves 1 players and 2 teams.
It does not look good for the Reds.