I hate writing about hypothetical trades. Every one I see usually starts off with one very good player on a very bad team and end with a very good team giving up absolutely nothing for them. At the risk of being that type of person, here I am with a trade scenario of my own staring the very good Trevor Bauer on the very bad (for now potentially) Cincinnati Reds.
Now the thing about Bauer is the second you bring him up in any trade fantasy with theNew York Yankees there’s always going to be people mentioning that he wouldn’t be a ‘true Yankee’ – whatever the hell that means? Well, look. If Bauer couldn’t be a true Yankee then what does that make Luis Avilan or J.A. Happ these days? They are Yankees and I would much rather they weren’t.
IT’S TOO GOOD OF AN IDEA
I’m always on the side of talent being more important than the perception of a player’s attitude and for Bauer, he is full-on talent this year. Just look at what he’s done so far in 2020:
.68 ERA
1.93 FIP
1.2 fWAR
43.6% K%
7.4% BB%
The peripherals on Baseball Savant are also incredibly sexy. For one he’s not getting hit hard at all. He’s in the top 88% in AVG Exit Velo, top 83% in Hard-Hit %, and in the top 80% in Barrel%. Here is where it gets even more nuts. His current stats are as elite as his expected stats.
He is in the top 100% in Expected ERA, top 97% in Expected AVG, and top 98% in Expected SLG. Here’s a guy with a .68 ERA and 1.93 FIP essentially underperforming that. If it were a longer season it’s tough to say that it would keep up but the season is short. You can over-perform and not have to worry about being leveled off by the rigors of baseball.
SO FOR WHO?!
Look I’m really bad at these things. Sometimes trades are really complicated like the one we saw that sent Bauer to the Reds. There were three teams and about seven or eight moving pieces. Then there are trades like the one that sent Edwin Encarnacion to the Yankees. That was just Encarnacion for one random minor leaguer that had been sent back and forth between the Yankees and Seattle Mariners before.
All I know is, if there’s a chance to make it happen, it should happen. On top of this, you get the guy in the door. You can have him be used to the Stadium and the Bronx. If he likes it you have a better shot at re-signing him in the off-season then if he were anywhere else.
As for he and Gerrit Cole’s little tiff between each other, well, they are both grown-ass men. They are both doing grown-ass jobs. They’ll deal with it.
