The New York Yankees need pitching both in the starting rotation and in the bullpen. Trevor Bauer has often been mentioned as the Yankees solution, but his suggested $200 million contract makes that’s not likely. Yesterday Trevor Bauer produced a YouTube Video basically dictating the demands he will have for his future team. He said he wants to be a pitcher for the team and wants to be a partner with the front office, where he will have a say when he pitches and how often. But it doesn’t stop there. He wants a say in his training and how to “build his brand.”
Just like the Yankees demand a clean appearance, they also have a tradition of the team first. That means that everything is about the team and not about the individual player. They carry that to the point of not having the player’s name on team uniforms. Bauer’s new demands that require the team to be in partnership with him to promote him is the complete opposite of the New York Yankees’ psychology of how the team operates and precludes him from ever playing in the Bronx under his terms.
Bauer has always been a controversial baseball player who is not afraid to speak out on any issue. Although this is not an official policy that Yankee players can’t speak about controversial subjects, it is an unwritten rule that they stick mostly to baseball talk when speaking for the club.
To add to that, there is also his relationship with the New York Yankees ace Gerrit Cole. Bauer and Cole have had poor relations from their college days in California.
I will attempt to dig deeper into the feud and try to determine if it’s real and if it could derail any attempt by the New York Yankees of trying to sign him, now that he is a free agent. For the most part, the feud is a feud on Trevor Bauer’s part, not the other way around. Cole went to high school at Orange Lutheran. After his senior year, the New York Yankees selected Cole in the first round, with the 28th overall selection of the 2008 Major League Baseball draft. Bauer attended Hart in Santa Clarita, California. Bauer was smart and graduated early, then attended UCLA. Cole refused the Yankee offer, instead attended UCLA. This is where the two high school baseball stars first met.
The first thing to understand is that both of these young men weren’t typical college jocks, they were both brilliant and very academic, and both studied their pitching crafts to levels seldom seen. That is where the similarities ended. The two personalities are polar opposites. Cole is quiet and all business with an extreme work ethic. Bauer’s mouth sometimes flapped when it shouldn’t, and his work ethic early on was questionable, noted by his coaches. Cole also noted it and called out Bauer for it. This is when the bad feelings between the two first came about.
Later Cole indicated that he felt that Bauer didn’t have a future in baseball. What caused him to say that is anyone’s guess. But Bauer admits many said the same thing, but it intensified the hurt feelings when his competition Cole said it. At the end of their college careers, they both were at the top of their game and the most wanted in the 2008 draft. Cole was selected number one and Bauer number three, but the supposed feud went on for years. It should be noted that Cole has never spoken of the feud, and avoids talking about it, and to this day, doesn’t talk to or even look at Bauer.
Bauer has a volatile personality that seems to make him say one thing one day and something different on the same subject on another day as it suits him. When he finally pitched against Cole for the first time in his career, when Cole was with the Astros, Bauer had wonderful things to say about Cole and their relationship.
At the same time, former UCLA assistant coach Rich Vanderhook spoke of the feud and said of the likelihood that hey would make up and be friends:
“I would have to say the odds of the earth burning up are better than that, told USA TODAY Sports. “That’s not going to happen. It’s just not. They are opposites, just such complete opposites.”
So with the recent development exposed in his YouTube video below, his controversial nature, and his feud with Gerrit Cole, its three strikes and you’re out as far a Bauer ever being a New York Yankee. Keep an open mind when watching the video. If you’re a Bauer fan, most everything he has to say will make perfect sense. If you’re a detractor, you will feel that he not only wants to pitch but wants to manage the team part-time and also wants to be baseball commissioner. You be the judge.