Los Angeles Dodgers signing of Trevor Bauer – By Colin Davern, contributor
The 2020-21 MLB offseason has seen a handful of transactions that will change the landscape of the league this season, but none of them have been bigger than the Los Angeles Dodgers signing Trevor Bauer.
The NL Cy Young Award winner signed a contract that will pay him $31 million this season with a player option for the 2022 and 2023 seasons for $35 million per year.
The move is low-risk, with his contract being three years at most. Bauer has said in the past that he wants to keep betting on himself with short-term contracts instead of signing a lifetime contract like Gerrit Cole and Max Scherzer did. That way, he’s not going to have any reason to take the foot off the gas pedal.
Expect more seasons ahead like his 2020 campaign, where he had the second-lowest ERA and WHIP in the majors along with the lowest opponent’s batting average.
Unlike the Padres trading for Yu Darvish and Blake Snell, the Dodgers’ only investment here is money, not future prospects. Keeping the farm system intact is key to lengthening a championship window to several years instead of being just a one-hit wonder.
Last season, the Dodgers had the best team ERA in the majors along with the lowest WHIP and batting average against. Remember, that was without Trevor Bauer. With the Cy Young winner now in the rotation, opposing hitters will look like pitchers stepping to the plate every game. Their rotation is so stacked that David Price or Dustin May will likely have to go to the bullpen because there’s just not enough room for them.
San Diego’s acquisitions of Darvish and Snell temporarily gave them the title of the best starting rotation in the majors, but the Dodgers took the title right back weeks later. And with Price returning to action this year after opting out of the 2020 season, the Dodgers remain the favorites in a potential playoff series between the NL West heavyweights.
San Diego Padres trades for Yu Darvish and Blake Snell – By Alex Staab, contributor
Now, Trevor Bauer may come with his YouTube following, his swagger and perhaps one of the highest quality agents in the game in Rachel Luba, but that doesn’t make him the better acquisition. That’s ring-chasing.
What the San Diego Padres did is bring much-needed help to a rotation that was “moderately respectable” and has now become one of the best in baseball, looking particularly at the acquisitions of Yu Darvish from the Cubs and Blake Snell from the Rays.
Snell is easily the better end of the deal here compared to Darvish, considering Darvish had his ups and downs while on the North Side. But when Darvish is ‘on’, you certainly don’t want to face him.
Snell was able to strike out 63 batters in 50 innings of work with a 3.24 ERA and a WAR (Wins Above Replacement) of 1.1.
It can be easy for fans to remember Snell for the Rays’ questionable decision-making in pulling him in such a critical postseason moment, but in the bigger picture, this is a landmark deal for the Friars.
For Darvish, the runner-up in the NL Cy Young voting, it’s up there with Snell. However, the overlying factor here is more so the Cubs getting rid of him than the Padres acquiring him.
The right-hander won all but four of his 2020 starts. Every facet of his game was flowing, down to the second-best opposing batting average of his career (.211).
What makes the acquisitions of Darvish and Snell so much better goes back to the big picture. This makes the Padres contenders to dethrone the Dodgers. Trevor Bauer just went ring-chasing.
