SOMEWHERE in the unwritten rules of baseball there is a floating clause that has wrapped itself around the pineal gland of stuffed shirts and hypocrites who populate virtually all echelons of the game/business--from the executives who run it, to the sportswriters who cover it, and even to the players' union. It reads as follows: "Thou shall not have rough sex with predatory women even if their charges against you are false."
The powers that be are so concerned about maintain a squeaky-clean image that they piled on Bauer even after there were no charges filed against him, only lawsuits. Such behavior was to be expected from Rob Manfred, of course, because there is no decision or event horizon in baseball over which he can't find a way to take the most expedient yet somehow self-contradictory overreaction while simultaneously coddling miscreant owners like John Fisher (the man who should be barred from baseball for two lifetimes).
(Manfred would fit right in on the Supreme Court, where he would demonstrate that his "balls and strikes calling" would be at least as inept as that of the Chief Justice and his phalanx of feckless Federalist Society fraudsters--at least one of whom, by the way, is accused of sexual crimes significantly more serious than the accusations made--but never proved--against Bauer.)
BUT, yes, let's get back to Bauer--talking about many of those in positions of decision-making power in this country is dispiriting at best...
He has come back to the USA, admitted he made reckless choices in his life, and owned up to his abrasive personality. Of late he's expressed willingness to pitch for the major league minimum in order to demonstrate some additional contrition for creating a cause celèbre in an area that baseball (and a sizable portion of folk in America's schizoid, Puritanical but sex-on-the-brain culture) just can't handle.
All of that has, naturally enough, left him effectively blackballed. Meanwhile, players with actual domestic violence charges and prior suspensions (Domingo German, to name just one) are allowed back into the game.
IT is, of course, a shameless sham being perpetrated by a group of baseball insiders--including the players' union, which should be at least noting that they are following this situation carefully and will intervene on Bauer's behalf if he is barred from the game without any such official announcement (one that, of course, would instantly produce litigation that MLB would lose).
Just as the Hall of Fame decided to cynically change its rules to hasten the blackballing of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, so the hypocrites in charge of "baseball policy decisions" are cynically following the strategies of a certain would-be dictator and hope to run out the clock on Trevor Bauer, figuring that if they play dodgeball with him long enough, he'll just be "aged out" of the rest of his career.
As noted--a shameless sham.
SO are there any franchises among the thirty major league monopolists who might defy their already lame-duck Commissioner? Pitching injuries seem to be increasing due to factors involving newly-fashioned pitches and mechanics that create greater stress and higher risk of arm damage: given that, every team should be interested in acquired an additional healthy arm. (Except the Dodgers, of course, who've made it clear that Bauer is persona non grata to them. )
Some teams, of course, might decide that they have sufficient quality that they don't need to pursue Bauer. But that doesn't describe every team in MLB: so we can identify the teams that should want to investigate all possible sources of top-level talent (and Bauer meets that definition)...they are either ones with the most serious incursions of injury or those with a demonstrable shortage of quality.
Let's look at just who might fall into those categories.
Teams with injury issues above and beyond the norm--in the AL East: Tampa Bay, New York; in the AL Central: Minnesota; in the AL West: Houston; in the NL East: New York; in the NL Central: St. Louis; in the NL West: San Diego.
Teams with a dearth of top-level talent--in the AL East: Boston; in AL Central: Chicago, Kansas City; in the AL West: Oakland; in the NL East: Miami; in the NL Central: Cincinnati, Pittsburgh (who just signed Domingo German...); in the NL West: Colorado.
ADD that up and there are fifteen (15) teams who should be willing to give Trevor Bauer a chance to pitch for them in 2024.
That's half of baseball...
Of course, most of these franchises are sheep-like when it comes to such "cultural" matters, and are terminally unwilling to rock the boat. That removes most of your "flyover country" teams, all but the ones with serious pitching problems, so let's leave in the White Sox and the Rockies as teams that might realistically decide that they have nothing to lose by bringing Bauer in to shore up shaky rotations.
We should also leave in the New York teams, with the Mets being more likely to do so because they have a shoot-from-the-hip owner in Steve Cohen. But the Yankees have a hole in the top of their rotation, and there's a media world there that would love to have such a story to cover--particularly if Bauer were to fail (for whatever reason). We can't be sure that this would sway the more staid incarnation of the Steinbrenner ownership dynasty--but one more injury to a starting pitcher might tip the balance.
Tampa Bay is a franchise that often bucks established edicts, though most of those seem to be analytical and not sociological in nature; still, their need for extra rotation arms might permit them to consider giving Bauer a look-see. Miami is likewise a place where lurid behavior is more conspicuously on display than in other metropolitan areas of the country, and they too might buck the "circle the moralistic wagons" policy if only to create/entice additional local interest from the "friskier" portion of their fan base.
As for fan bases, Oakland's is perfect for a Bauer landing place--but the meretricious meta-collusion between Manfred and Fisher makes that a total non-starter. And San Diego is probably off the table as well, for more prosaic inter-franchise reasons: this is probably the decisive year for A.J. Preller's pursuit of the playoffs, which needs to pay off in a post-season berth or else his goose is most likely parboiled--which means he can't afford to take a quixotic gamble on a controversial player whose failure might be seen as one of the reasons the team fell short.
What about the Red Sox, you say? There's a first-year GM (Craig Breslow) there, who is already proceeding with excessive caution. So even though they could use Bauer, it won't happen unless owner John Henry gets a wild hair in that NSFW location.
SO--that leaves the two New York clubs, the Rockies (who could justifiably note that they always need pitching), the White Sox (Jerry Reinsdorf might be persuaded to toss Manfred a middle-finger move of this type...), the Rays and the Fish, and, finally, the Astros (likewise with an owner ready to poke Manfred in the eye and a team with serious pitching injuries).
Come on, you clowns, someone give Bauer a chance to either redeem himself or go down in flames if he either can't cut it in terms of changing his persona or being able to pitch well enough to warrant a slot in MLB. For f*ck's sake, where is Bill Veeck when you really need him?
As we always say at this point: stay tuned...
