Trevor Bauer, who just a few years ago was one of the premier pitchers in Major League Baseball (MLB), is a free agent now, but teams aren’t exactly lining up to shower him with C-notes. Bauer pitched on Sunday and showed that he was still in excellent form, but the game was conspicuous by the absence of major league scouts who might have opened their checkbooks and welcomed Bauer, who hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2021, back into the elite fraternity.
Bauer is still persona non grata in MLB, and yet not only has he not been found guilty of anything, but the accuser who got him suspended from the league in the first place has also been abundantly discredited. "Innocent until proven guilty" doesn’t apply to Trevor Bauer.
The New York Post reported Monday that Bauer faced a collection of Los Angeles Dodgers minor leaguers, and while the competition may not have been elite, he “still showed flashes of what once made him a highly sought-after pitcher in the majors, hitting 99 mph on the radar gun.”
Bauer himself was happy with his performance and remained hopeful that someone in MLB would notice: “I just stay ready,’’ he said, “and maybe people somehow will remember that I’m still one of the best pitchers in the world. For those who saw me pitch, I think it was pretty obvious I was still elite. Telling hitters what pitch was coming, and getting outs. I think anyone who was here could see that the stuff was elite. Command is there. Shapes are there. All that. I’m a better pitcher now than I was the last time people here saw me. Hopefully, today reminded them that I’m still an elite pitcher. If not, that’s fine too.’’
So why doesn’t Trevor Bauer have a major league contract? Because he was “suspended a record 194 games for violating MLB’s domestic violence and sexual assault policy and then cut by the Dodgers.” He has served that suspension, but no baseball team has shown any sign of wanting to sign him, despite the fact that his violations of “MLB’s domestic violence and sexual assault policy” are all allegations, not anything that has been established in a court of law or anywhere else.
Four women have accused Bauer of sexual assault, and while none of their claims have been definitively established, there is no doubt that he has behaved in a reckless and tawdry manner. The Los Angeles Times reported in June 2023 that in one woman’s case, Bauer was “accused of choking her and forcibly grabbing her, one encounter in which he is accused of holding a jagged steak knife to her throat and another in which he is accused of raping her at an Arizona residence.”
Bauer denies all this and contends that he and this woman had a “single, consensual sexual encounter,” after which she claimed she was pregnant and said she would get an abortion if he paid her $1.6 million. Bauer paid her $8,000 for the abortion, and alleges that the woman “fabricated her pregnancy to try and extort him for money.”
Related: Ex-MLB Pitcher Trevor Bauer Exposes Jaw-Dropping Scheme of #MeToo Accuser
Is that possible? Sure. Last October, PJ’s Gwendolyn Sims detailed revelations that one of Bauer’s accusers had written to a friend: “Next victim. Star pitcher for the Dodgers.” She wrote about getting a substantial share of Bauer’s fortune, explaining that she was “being an absolute whore to try to get in on his $51 million.”
The icing on the cake was that she claimed he had beaten her, but Bauer pointed out that in a video she made on the morning she left Bauer’s house, she appears happy and unhurt. Sims asked, “Will we as a society continue to recklessly ‘believe all women’ when we should simply take the accusations seriously, but remember people are innocent until proven guilty? What about the MLB? Will they ever realize they need to protect their young players from these predators and not throw them to the wolves at the slightest hint of an accusation just to protect ‘the brand’?”
Clearly the lords of baseball have not yet realized any such thing and are happy to throw Trevor Bauer to the wolves despite the spectacular discrediting of one of his accusers. If MLB said that it wanted all its players to live morally upright lives and avoid even the appearance of wrongdoing and were banning Trevor Bauer as a result, that would be one thing. If a team signed him now and dropped him when he was actually convicted of something, no one could object.
But what teams are doing is shunning Bauer because he has run afoul of woke #MeToo norms regarding sexual abuse and assault allegations. That’s just cowardly not just Bauer deserves better. America deserves better.
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