USA TODAY US Edition

Bauer happy with LA; Mets happy without him

- Bob Nightengal­e Columnist

PHOENIX – Trevor Bauer stood behind the mound for several moments Monday, stepped on the pitcher’s rubber, kicked the dirt with his left foot and at 1:06 MT threw his first pitch as a member of the Dodgers at Camelback Ranch.

One hour later, he was showing up to his news conference bringing his own video camera and microphone, wearing a Tshirt that read, “My hobby is getting better.” And proceeded to say he’s in the prime of his career, vowing to remain one of MLB’s elite pitchers and proving to everyone that his 2020 National League Cy Young Award in the shortened season was no fluke.

It was a typical day in the life of Bauer.

Earlier, Mets President Sandy Alderson said the team might be better off that Bauer chose Los Angeles over New York, with the Dodgers countering in the afternoon that they’re grateful they spent $102 million on him.

The Mets say they were wary of Bauer’s strong but sometimes polarizing presence on social media, and considerin­g that New York pitchers Noah Syndergaar­d and Marcus Stroinning man have recently feuded with Bauer on Twitter, Alderson wondered aloud if perhaps it could have been a problem. “I’m not here to say, ‘Wow, we dodged a bullet,’ ” Alderson said. “I’m here to say we made an effort. We thought he would help our team. We’re in a good spot. I’m happy with the way the offseason went generally and not unhappy about losing out on Bauer or others. I think that he would have added a dimension to our team, maybe a third or fourth dimension. Hard to know how that would have turned out. But we thought we could manage it. And maybe that was naive. We’ll see.”

It’s early, but the Dodgers and Bauer insist everything is going smoothly, with the team not trying to stifle his personalit­y and Bauer saying he wants to develop leadership skills.

“You always get better,” Bauer said. “Leadership is a big one that I’m working on with young guys, and companies outside, trying to lead people.”

Certainly, if Bauer performs the way he did in his Cactus League debut against the Rockies in LA’s 10-0 rout, he’ll have a whole lot of fellas in the Dodgers clubhouse letting him lead the way.

Bauer gave up a leadoff single to open the game but retired the next six batters in his twoinning performanc­e. He struggled a bit with his control on his 92-94 mph fastball in the first but had pinpoint command with his 78-81 mph curveball in the second inning, throwing 21 of his 28 pitches for strikes. It was just a glimpse of what Bauer expects to show the Dodgers this year and beyond.

“I know what kind of pitcher I am,” Bauer said. “I know how hard I work. How much knowledge I’ve amassed. How far I’ve come. If I have something to prove, it’s to myself, always. I hold myself to a much higher standard that anyone else hold me to.”

So go ahead, he says, bring up his career 3.90 ERA. Talk about the fact that he faced teams with winning records only twice during last year’s 60-game schedule. Talk about his contract, making him the highest-paid player in baseball this year and in 2022.

He’s not going to apologize for winning the Cy Young, the contract or anything else on the baseball field, daring anyone to compare his numbers to those of Gerrit Cole and Stephen Strasburg since mid-2017 if not for his injuries in 2019.

“If you look at it,” Bauer says, “I’ve been pretty elite . ... People can say what they want to say. It doesn’t really matter. Everybody plays the same amount of games. We showed up last year under an agreed upon set of rules, and you crowned the best under those rules. Just like people say the Dodgers’ World Series wasn’t legitimate. Everyone had the same opportunit­y. In a given year, under the same set of rules, the Dodgers were the best team last year. Just as I was the best pitcher in the National League last year.”

And he expects to be even better.

Sure, he’d still like to pitch every fourth day, but with the Dodgers’ arsenal of talent, there’s no need to even bring it up, at least not at this juncture.

Manager Dave Roberts says he loves Bauer’s curiosity and competitiv­eness, and LA pitchers like three-time Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw constantly pick his brain, not interferin­g with his personalit­y.

“You know what you’re getting and so I don’t really worry about it. It doesn’t bother me,” outfielder Mookie Betts told reporters. “He goes out there and competes, he gets wins and those types of things. I don’t know what more you can ask for. You know what you’re getting. He’s got to be Trevor Bauer; you can’t try and turn him into someone else.”

Maybe the Mets would have echoed the same sentiments if Bauer had signed with them.

“We understood what the risks were associated with some of the social media stuff,” Alderson said. “We talked about what would be necessary at the outset, about in taking responsibi­lity for what had happened in the past and taking some responsibi­lity for what might happen in the future.

“It’s not foolproof. We weren’t being naïve in that, ‘OK, we turn this guy around on a dime and turn him into something that he wasn’t before.’ We felt we could manage it. It’s possible we wouldn’t be able to, but at this point we don’t have to worry about it.”

The Dodgers, who limited Bauer’s questions to “baseballon­ly” after his outing, seem unconcerne­d at the moment.

“I already knew that he was a very curious player,” Roberts said. “I’ve known he’s a great teammate and he’s a great competitor. Those are things that just basically have been validated. He’s been fantastic.”

 ?? ROSS D. FRANKLIN/AP ?? Trevor Bauer pitched two scoreless innings in his first spring training appearance for the Dodgers.
ROSS D. FRANKLIN/AP Trevor Bauer pitched two scoreless innings in his first spring training appearance for the Dodgers.
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