Mark Madden: Pirates should make pitch for Trevor Bauer, despite PR nightmare

The Pittsburgh Pirates are at any number of disadvantages when pursuing free agents, not least that good players have other choices and all those options are better.

But right-handed pitcher Trevor Bauer is a good player who might not have alternatives.

Bauer, 32, is at loose ends after being cut by the Los Angeles Dodgers. He was accused of sexual assault with disturbingly violent overtones. Bauer said what occurred was consensual rough sex. Criminal charges were never filed.

Despite not being charged, Bauer was suspended for 324 games by MLB. It was later reduced to 194 games on appeal. He can pitch in 2023.

Bauer was released by the Dodgers on Jan. 12. The team is still obliged to pay him $22.5 million for the coming season. Bauer could sign with any club for the MLB minimum of $720,000.

It would be a PR nightmare, but the Pirates should try to sign Bauer. (Disclaimer: If any other team wants Bauer, he’d go there. Because that team would be better. But there’s currently no talk about Bauer signing anywhere. A New York Post article quotes a baseball decision-maker as saying Bauer will have to pitch for a “team on another planet.”)

Bauer’s career has had ups and downs. But he has matured into an absolute technician.

Bauer won the National League Cy Young Award in 2020, the covid-shortened season. He had a 2.59 ERA and a WHIP of 1.003 in 2021. But MLB put Bauer on administrative leave as of July 2 that season. He has not pitched since.

Will Bauer be effective when he resumes pitching?

Here’s betting he’d be, by far, the Pirates’ best pitcher. He’d for sure be better than, say, JT Brubaker.

If Bauer pitches well, the Pirates could trade him for prospects at the deadline. (It will be easier to be Bauer’s second team after his suspension than it will his first.)

The Pirates would absorb criticism, sure, especially in Twitter’s echo chamber. But should Bauer’s career be over when he was never even charged? (Ben Roethlisberger’s wasn’t.)

Would fans stop going to PNC Park in protest? Because it seems many already have stopped going. The Pirates’ average attendance last season was 15,524, fourth-worst in MLB.

Perhaps a chance to watch a legit ace pitch would sell tickets. Between Bauer and the return of the extremely popular Andrew McCutchen, who knows how much attendance could rise?

A better team would sell more tickets, too. If the Pirates have made legit improvement like their media stooges bleat, a good year by Bauer would almost surely help them dodge 100 losses. They might lose less than 90 games, maybe even get near (gasp) .500.

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This isn’t lightly dismissing what Bauer was accused of.

But Bauer wasn’t even charged. Does the woke mob and the court of social media get to overrule the judicial system?

Bauer is doubtless strange. He affixes electrodes to his head to “expedite the learning curve.” He is obsessed with things like mechanics and spin rate. His athleticism is hardly overwhelming, but he has worked hard to overachieve. A 2019 Sports Illustrated profile compared him to Sheldon Cooper, the eccentric savant in “The Big Bang Theory.”

Bauer uses truth as a bludgeon. Some dislike him for that. He has made trouble for himself on social media. He has rallied after being bullied as a kid. (Gee, all that sounds familiar.)

Bauer would be the Pirates’ first legit No. 1 starter since Gerrit Cole left. (Bauer and Cole played together at UCLA and hated each other.)

Many things could kibosh the pie-in-the sky idea of Bauer pitching for the Pirates. One is that Bauer would likely see such a rotten team as being beneath him.

But what if there aren’t other options? Bauer would have to re-launch somewhere. Why not Pittsburgh, however temporary?

It’s intriguing. So is Bauer. There wouldn’t be a dull moment.