It’s officially Trevor Bauer hour in New York City.
The Reds’ right hander turned free agent won his first Cy Young award on Wednesday evening, receiving 27 of 30 first place votes, and beating runner-up Yu Darvish by 78 points.
Newly named Mets President Sandy Alderson had kind words to say regarding Bauer on WFAN, as noted in a Newsday article Wednesday night.
“I actually think Bauer would be a great personality in New York. He’s the kind of guy that fans would embrace. This is an entertainment business. We’ve got to be open-minded about how players express themselves. The thing what’s interesting about Bauer is he brings along with him a lot of ideas, a lot of routines and sort of a technical orientation that I bet we can learn from.”
In a press conference Wednesday afternoon, Bauer was appreciative of Alderson’s comments, and credited Alderson on his point that baseball is an entertainment business.
“We are an entertainment business,” Bauer said. “That’s a view that I share, that’s something that I’m passionate about. I certainly would like to move that initiative forward, because I think the players will be better for it when they start looking at it that way.”
Bauer, who is generally known to be an outspoken player who does not seem to be afraid to wrestle with baseball executives on social media, runs his own Youtube series in which he documents his life as a MLB player and now free agent.
“It was refreshing to hear him speak that way about me,” Bauer said. “In the past, a lot of the narratives surrounding me was I couldn’t handle a big market, a big media market, I was a headcase or whatever the case is. That’s kind of been the narrative. To hear that someone as high ranking as Sandy feels the way he feels about that is refreshing.”
Bauer is looking for a multi-year deal after an excellent 2020 season in which he finished first in the National League with a 1.73 ERA, first in WHIP with 0.79, and second in strikeouts with exactly 100 over the course of the shortened 60-game season.
Relations between the Mets and Bauer seem to be good and growing, but there is no deal in sight yet, as Bauer continues to survey his options. However, with Marcus Stroman accepting his qualifying offer for the 2021 season, billionaire Steve Cohen taking the helm as the Mets’ owner, and Jacob deGrom continuing to dominate on the mound, Queens definitely isn’t the worst spot that Bauer could end up in.
