Dodgers knew risks with Bauer, now face tough decisions
When they cancel your bobblehead night, that spells trouble.
The Dodgers are starting to distance themselves from Trevor Bauer. On Wednesday, they canceled the pitcher’s bobblehead night, originally scheduled for Aug. 19, and at the same time they pulled Bauer merchandise off the shelves at the team store and took it off of the dodgers.com and MLB. com online stores as well.
What took them so long? And is the realization dawning on people in the front office that the three-year, $102 million deal that Bauer signed with the team in February was not only a bad investment but toxic?
The clubhouse culture so carefully nurtured by manager Dave Roberts and his staff was bound to be tested from the moment Bauer pulled on a Dodger jersey, given the baggage he brought with him. Management took that risk, and his pitching as a front-end rotation piece seemed to be worth the gamble, even when he became the center of attention as the game’s campaign against pitchers’ use of foreign substances on baseballs ramped up.
But nobody anticipated this: A petition for a domestic violence restraining order filed in L.A. County Superior Court on behalf of a 27-year-old woman from San Diego, alleging acts by Bauer that would constitute sexual assault. One effect was to tarnish the team’s and organization’s reputation and good name nationally, even though the office of the commissioner takes over the responsibility from a team any time there are domestic violence accusations.
Bauer, placed on sevenday administrative leave by MLB last Friday, has vigorously denied the allegations through his representatives, who have insisted that the encounter was “wholly consensual,” as agent Jon Fetterolf put it in their initial statement. Bauer will have his opportunity to respond to the charges at a hearing scheduled for July 23, and the Pasadena Police Department continues its investigation of the matter. He has not been charged with a crime.
Meanwhile, Roberts said earlier this week he didn’t anticipate Bauer would rejoin the team at the end of the seven-day period Friday, which suggests that the administrative leave probably will be extended at least another week with the approval of the Players Association while MLB continues its own investigation. Commissioner Rob Manfred’s office can issue a suspension without a criminal charge having been filed.
For Bauer’s employers, this has been enough of a disaster — in both public perception and roster management — that they have to be rethinking just what they have gotten themselves into.
Roberts last week was forced to parry questions while waiting for the commissioner’s office to make a move, and he and the organization both came out of it looking tone-deaf at the very least, enablers at worst. If he had it to do again he probably wouldn’t have told the media last Thursday that Bauer was still scheduled to start Sunday, though the qualification that the decision was “out of our hands” was a subtlety that escaped the general public.
Meanwhile, the manager is now trying to figure out how to navigate a period without at least two-fifths of a starting rotation that entered this season as arguably the major leagues’ best and deepest. When 40 percent of your games are bullpen games, as Roberts reiterated to the media via Zoom before Wednesday’s game in Miami, that’s just not sustainable over an extended period of time.
“You have to have a handful of guys that can take down multiple innings,” he said. “And if you don’t have that, then the rubber is going to hit the road at some point and you’re going to be in a dire situation if a particular game goes sideways.
Dire doesn’t begin to describe it. When Clayton Kershaw went on the injured list with forearm inflammation on Wednesday afternoon, that 40 percent just became 60 percent for the immediate future. The All-Star break is coming at a very good time.
Dustin May’s elbow injury and subsequent Tommy John surgery weren’t predictable. But Bauer and his history? Even with the assumption of innocence until proven guilty, if it wasn’t a story this sordid there was bound to be another controversy or online conflagration or something that could distract or detract from the pursuit of a second straight World Series championship.
This is a guy, remember, who has goaded his Twitter followers to harass women online, or mocked transgender people by tweeting, “I identify as a 12-year-old,” or got himself traded by Cleveland after Manager Terry Francona came to the mound to take him out of a game and he responded by throwing the ball over the center field fence.
There seemed to be plenty of signals about the level of risk involved. And yet you’ll remember that the day the signing was announced, and a questioner suggested a certain segment of fans might feel alienated and not valued, Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman responded:
“Oh, we very much value them. That part is easy. Hopefully, over the last six-plus years, some trust and credibility has been built up in terms of the research that we do on players and the vetting process we go through in terms of talking to teammates of players that we’re looking at, talking to clubhouse guys, talking to trainers.”
Maybe the vetting process should have extended further.
Would Friedman make that decision to sign him again, and would ownership sign off on it? You can guess the answer, but executives are paid for foresight, not hindsight. Just imagine how those New York Mets fans who were so sore about Bauer signing in L.A. must feel right now. The guy they wound up with, Taijuan Walker – also a SoCal guy, from Yucaipa – has pitched just as well without nearly as much commotion for a division leader.
At some point, the Dodgers might face a decision. Do they cut their losses, eat the contract and pay him to go away?
I would.