Dodgers Cave to the Woke Mob

The Trevor Bauer Debacle will be officially over in 7 days as predicted. Time to move on and cheer for the present Dodger roster going into Spring training. I believe the Dodgers did the right thing from a PR standpoint. AF is human and can’t get them all right.

Well folks, it’s going to be a sunny day here where I live. There always something to improve around the house. Always work to do. Let’s be the best we can be, think positive and enjoy our lives to the fullest.

So, to further clarify the distinction between a Woke person and a Karen, I would use this as example of Woke – morally self-righteous with equal parts nastiness; hyper-obsessed with “justice” and not labelling people, but usually the first to denigrate a person based on age or color of skin.

Well, the shoe dropped. Not unexpected. It’d be interesting to read a little about the efforts AF went into looking for a trade partner. Because he had this deadline and PR was clearly working against him, I suppose he really didn’t have a whole lot of leverage – at least that may have been the perception from a lot of the other owners. The pressure was on the Dodgers, not anybody else. Will be interesting to see if/where he lands up. I would have to think the Mets, being that it’s New York, and politically not dissimilar from LA, would want to avoid the PR mess. Remember, Bauer is not out of a job solely because he may have abused women. His real sin … his original sin … is being perceived as right wing, as being pro Orange Man. That may sound ridiculous, and it is, but it’s sadly also true.

There’s a podcaster that I like and listen to and follow on Twitter. Lex Fridman. He has long form interviews on oftentimes cerebral topics with scientists, thought leaders, politicians and celebrities. He comes across as a really, really earnest and genuinely nice person. The twitter mob has gone after him and has tried to publicly smear and slander him and get him fired from his position at MIT. His sin? He’s friendly with, has interviewed, and interacts on Twitter with Elon Musk, who’s risen to near Trump status in the pantheon of people the Woke despise. If you don’t make a public pronouncement of virtue by expressing adequate amounts of hatred for the right targets, you will be hated.

So, now the spectator sport in this whole mess will be to see if this ends this whole fiasco and the Dodgers and their fans can now move on. My hunch is, no. Once that critical mass of outrage is reached, it’s not always easy to stop moral panics. Witch hunts tend not to end with just one witch. You have to seek out anyone who may have been in contact with that witch, who may have given comfort or support to said witch, and thusly accuse them of witchcraft.

I read a post in the last article from someone who was upset that AF didn’t release him immediately. So, already it may have started. Social justice warriors are never satisfied. I’d predict that a few of these social justice warrior/”journalists” will now start the slow drumbeat to holding AF accountable for ever signing Bauer. He enabled the witch. AF will have to be burned, too. I don’t know if it will be most, even among the Wokest, but some will be make the passive aggressive insinuation that AF needs to go, and they’ll justify it on other grounds, but his sin will be that he signed Bauer.

I agree 100% with Mark but I’m ready to move on.

Guy hasn’t pitched in almost 2 years. We got guys behind him that will probably be better.

I’m ready for the season…this team WILL be a good team. And then its get hot at the right time….

You can leave………..bye bye

Chris, read what you just wrote. You are disguising your own aggressive behavior as self-righteousness. Those who stand up for a legal system that’s supposed to protect the innocent until proven guilty are all wife-beaters according to you? Those that took the time to dig into the facts to come up with their own viewpoints instead of just reading headlines are the bad people?

My wife called this blackmail as soon as the story came out. She’s been a Paralegal and Legal Assistant for 20 years.

I feel sorry for the woman in your life having to live without a strong man by her side. Another loser calling names from behind a keyboard.

A lot of words of passion from a lot of Dodger fans. I like BP’s notion of trying to get something from this mess over the next seven days. It pains me the team has to eat the $22.5M and we may have to pay for Bauer pitching against us. This too will pass.

What I do appreciate is that Bauer didn’t try the Hershel Walker crap by saying the Lord has changed his course and all those types of lies. Bauer is clearly an A Hole who can pitch. He will pitch somewhere and I hope we can light him up if he pitches against our beloved Dodgers.

I am excited about the notion of the kids getting a chance this season. Mostly sad about not being about to use that $22.5M to strengthen our current team. I’m hoping to make it to ST to absorb more of my joy for Dodger baseball this March.

Thanks me the interesting thing is how the Dodgers stay under the threshold still.

A trade partner for Bauer would help immensely, but is doubtful.

Otherwise it’s going to be really hard, and would that portend resetting the cap next year!?!?!?

I do not think any team will trade for him… even if you throw in a couple of top prospects.. AF could offer Bauer, Taylor, Pepiot, Miller & Pages and there will be no takers Maybe someone signs him for the minimum but he is a leper!

A very wealthy leper !

From a pure baseball standpoint, I hate this decision because it’s a waste of $22.5M, a sunk cost or “Bad Contract Debt”. I wonder how this would have worked out if the Dodgers signed him to a long-term contract instead of the short-term High AAV contract that he’s currently under. Do you think they would have cut him if they had 7 more years to go?

The loss of Bauer, at first glance, makes the team weaker. Take the blinder’s off and see him for what he is. He’s a very good, not great pitcher that helps the bullpen because he pitches deep into games. He’s a workhorse, something this rotation clearly lacked last season, especially in the playoffs where Doc, once again, overused his pen. He’s a very good number two that’s capable of matching up with number one’s and keeping your team in the game.

AF covered his bases with the pending possibility of Bauer not being on this team when he signed a “hot rod garage” candidate in Noah Syndergaard. At Noah’s best, he’s a very similar pitcher. Hopefully, the Dodgers can get him right. The rest of the rotation is pretty much the same as last season, May takes over for an injured Buehler and Kershaw, Gonso and Urias round it out. In a sense, Bauer would move another rotation piece into a depth piece. Now, we clear a depth spot and give it to another rookie. Miller, Stone, Pepiot or Grove. Could any of them fill Bauer’s shoes on the hill? Well, they are some of the best pitching prospects in baseball. The rest of the rotation could be as good as Bauer in any given year. Not having him doesn’t hurt the team that much. This move does not make or break us for the upcoming season.

As more information comes forth, I consider the information to form new opinions. Now, we’ve seen a comment posted by Bauer and the team’s response. Each side is telling it as they see it. From Bauer’s perspective, he met with team officials about coming back to pitch on this team. From the Dodger’s perspective, they met with Bauer and he showed no contrition. What actually happened, might be somewhere in the middle. The Dodgers have a track record of not being truthful in their releases, especially with injured players, so it’s hard for me to trust anything they say. They are run, at the tippy top, by business executives who toe the line between telling the truth and lying for a living. Bauer seems to be the OCD type that sees things very black and white. In my opinion, the truth is somewhere in between.

The more likely scenario is the Dodgers have been fielding trade offers for the last two weeks and didn’t get anything that knocked their socks off. Maybe they received no interest at all. Maybe they have a deal in place that involves another player on the 40 and the DFA allows them to keep a player on the roster that they would have had to cut when they added Bauer back on it. Then they met with Bauer to see what was in store for the upcoming season, through conversation. Maybe they even told him what was needed as far as a public statement goes and Bauer had a different opinion. But, just the fact that they met with him before a DFA means the door was at least cracked open for a return.

It’s not entirely a baseball decision. It’s not entirely a political decision. The Dodgers brass are financial experts. They manage risk for a living, for their entire careers. The run the team like a mutual fund. Diversify to strike a balance between limiting risk and optimizing performance.

In the upcoming week, we will see if there is any trade value remaining. Here’s the DFA definition from MLB.

When a player’s contract is designated for assignment — often abbreviated “DFA” — that player is immediately removed from his club’s 40-man roster. Within seven days of the transaction (had been 10 days under the 2012-16 Collective Bargaining Agreement), the player can either be traded or placed on irrevocable outright waivers.

If the player is claimed off said waivers by another club, he is immediately added to that team’s 40-man roster, at which point he can be optioned to the Minor Leagues (if he has Minor League options remaining) or assigned to his new team’s 26-man roster. If the player clears waivers, he may be sent outright to the Minor Leagues or released. Players with more than three years of Major League service time or who have been previously outrighted may reject the outright assignment in favor of free agency.

Clubs may utilize this option to clear a spot on the 40-man roster — typically with the intention of adding a newly acquired player (via trade or free agency), a Minor Leaguer or a player being activated from the 60-day injured list.

Here’s more on waivers…

Release Waivers

Definition

Before a club can formally release a player, that player must first be passed through unconditional release waivers. All 29 other clubs in the Majors have the opportunity to claim the player and add him to their 40-man rosters. A player that is claimed on release waivers has the option of rejecting that claim and instead exploring the free-agent market. Release waivers are often requested after a player’s contract is designated for assignment or in cases when a veteran player would otherwise refuse an outright assignment. Players are rarely claimed off release waivers, as the claiming club is required to pick up the remaining contract. Once the player clears waivers, the releasing club is responsible for the old contract.

There’s at least a couple of scenes where the Dodgers could free up some of his salary.

1) They can negotiate a trade with another team. Maybe getting a good player in return, or a prospect, eating some or all of Bauer’s remaining salary in the process.

2) Another team can claim him off waivers, give the Dodgers nothing, but will have to pay his salary. Mostly an unlikely scenario, but considering that Thor got a one year, 20M contract from Angels while coming off an injury, a team might be willing to eat Bauer’s remaining $22M for a healthy Cy Young winner.

I went back and watched all of his starts from 2021. He was very good at going deep into games, then in mid June, he started giving up a lot of home runs. After his 8-5 start and being placed on administrative leave, his HR’s allowed total stood at 17. Had he pitched a full season, he might have given up 30. But he was a strikeout machine and had over 10 in 4 games. Also, most of the long balls he gave up were solo shots. It does look like after the ban on the sticky grip stuff pitchers used, he lost a little something. But any guesswork of how the season might have played out is a wasted effort. One thing to remember, had he not been placed on admin leave, and none of this happened, they probably would not have traded for Scherzer and Turner.

According the WSJ, he sunk his own ship with a recording where he admits striking the ladies, an infraction which violates the MLB rules according to the article. I hope there is a team willing to step out and mitigate our situation based on their desire to sign him.

I am holding out hope the Dodgers are executing a strategy that none can see:

1. Announce release of Bauer, score PR win, remove distraction, and negative influence on rookies.

2. Trade Bauer this week, thus controlling his destination and reducing our financial obligation.

3. Use recouped $’s on deal to land another pitcher.

This would restore my confidence in Dodger brass.

I apologize it’s been a lifelong battle

People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw parties. The bigger a person is in the eyes of the public is going to be looked at harder and anything of controversial behavior will be magnified and judged motivated as an example. The massage sent By MLB and the Dodgers Is probably more about keeping or putting in line or future players that the job puts their lives viewed through a microscope so beware or else. Either secure or free but can’t be both. So pass me the bong, I ain’t running for President.

Right or wrong, the Dodgers opted to part ways with Trevor Bauer. I’m marginally surprised that they chose to eat 22.5 million (chump change claimed one poster. Tell that to a minor leaguer) and give a competitor a shot at him for the minimum while LA picks up the tab. Odd. I predicted that they would make a deal for Trevor to be elsewhere and split the cost; 11.25 per team. I bet this was put out there but no takers.

Can he still pitch? I think we’ll see.

I’m no math major and lots of numbers are tossed around. Correct me if I’m in error but the best I can figure is:

Bauer signed in Feb. 2021 for 3 years for 102 million including a bonus.

He last pitched on June 28, 2021. In 2021, he was 8&5 w/ a nice 2.59 ERA. 17 starts in 107.2 innings.

Those are his total 3 year contract contributions to the Dodgers.

He 3 year contract was for 486 games. You would have hoped for 90+ starts for that money

A 192 game suspension takes that down to 292 games for which the Dodgers are obligated to pay his salary. That is $64.8 million according to my math.

So for $65 million, the Dodgers got 17 starts and 107.2 innings. That’s 3.8 million per game started and $600,000 per inning pitched.

So, this was a financial disaster only exacerbated by paying the last 22.5 million for him to pitch elsewhere.

I don’t know AF and the organization’s reasons and I don’t care. I do blame Bauer for stealing the Dodger’s money and being an idiot.

I think there was so much wrong here including the length of the suspension, Manfred and MLB dragging there feet costing the Dodgers in many ways and adding the need for a cut in payroll for 2023.

But it is what it is. And time to move on. Maybe there is still some deal to be done.

Ken Rosenthal’s new article at the Athletic is garbage. Essentially lecturing the Dodgers for taking all 14 days to DFA Bauer. I know he’s a very connected baseball reporter, but this is a very one sided take.

As if just eating $22m and letting a good pitcher potentially play against you in your own division is something that requires no thoughtful consideration.

This kind of condescending reporting really irritates me. Things are almost never black and white. But acting like they are sure makes it easy to think your own “sh*t don’t stink”.

I think Mark should change the name of this blog to Anal Sex Death.

One thing is quite obvious to me, the subject of Trevor Bauer incites a lot of passion in fans one both sides of the issue. The cold hard fact is that the Dodgers, meaning ownership, have made the decision to sever ties with the talented pitcher. Thus, the circus is leaving town and the arguments from either side are moot now. I agree with the analysis of Rosenthal’s column that it is nothing more than drivel and one-sided drivel at that. Whether charged or not, guilty of same or not, Trevor Bauer will never wear a Dodger uni again. And also obvious is the fact that unless he made some sort of contrite statement and apology, the chances of him returning to the Dodgers were absolutely zero. He has no trade value at this point, and the Dodgers are getting nothing for their investment. He will be released and although most believe he won’t, there are a couple of teams out there who are willing to take a flyer on him, especially since all it will cost them is the MLB minimum. Some say there is no way this happens, but it has happened with other players where there was way more evidence of misconduct. Of course only time will tell us the outcome.

Pretty good analysis of the Dodgers, off-season strategy by Jack Harris in LAT. If I’m reading it right, he thinks AF could angle for Adames and/or Reynolds at midseason.

A common opinion, it seems, is that the Dodgers need another proven bat. I tend to agree, because the rookies aren’t proven, Trayce is sketchy, and we need bounce-back performance from Max, Taylor, JD Martinez and (to a lesser extent) Lux.

I’ll put in another plug here for McCutcheon if the price is OK. Good platoon possibility.

BETMGM has the Dodgers and Mets as co favorites to win it all at +350.