MLB sources say he is blacklisted until “next year”

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Considering the list of pitchers who have been unable to play this season due to arm injuries, it’s somewhat surprising that no team has signed Trevor Bauer.

As of April 9, less than two weeks into the Major League Baseball season, more than 130 pitchers were out of action or just returning from arm injuries, including Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole, Walker Buehler, Spencer Strider, Shohei Ohtani, Jacob DeGrom, Sandy Alcantara, Lucas Giolito, Clayton Kershaw and Shane Bieber.

Surely there was a team that could have used Trevor Bauer’s services this year, right?

All he did this summer was go 10-0 with 120 strikeouts in 83.1 innings with a 1.044 WHIP for the Diablos Rojos of the Mexican Baseball League after spending a year in Japan going 11-4 with a 2.59 ERA.

If a pitcher had managed to put up those numbers in Triple-A, he would have been called up months ago. So why is Trevor Bauer still on the sidelines, especially since he publicly offered to play for the major league minimum salary?

According to him, “it’s an MLB decision.”

“One team told me I was ‘too expensive’ even though I offered to play for the minimum, another team told us they had hidden things in the past and didn’t want the media to dig into it,” Bauer said Tuesday in a thread on X (Twitter).

Bauer added: “We’ve heard from multiple sources that I’m scheduled to sit out again this year and will be allowed back next year. So we’ll see.”

In response to a fan’s comment, he wrote: “This whole process is bullshit. Apparently someone can make up a bunch of lies about you, you prove them false, and then you lose everything. How that’s possible is beyond me, but I guess that’s what society has chosen to accept these days.”

In response to another fan, Bauer wrote: “Guilty until proven innocent and then treated as such. It’s okay. Cancel culture eventually eats itself. The idiots who perpetrated this fraud have to live as themselves for the rest of their pathetic lives, which probably sucks more than anything I’ve ever experienced.”

“Since when does MLB have any say in who a team drafts and hires?” another fan asked.

“That’s a great question about MLB,” Bauer said. “It shouldn’t be their decision, but apparently in some cases it is… And all your coaches and players agree with that, but… they’ve been told…”