FA Analysis: The Curious Case of Trevor Bauer

Trevor Bauer has become one of the most polarizing figures in baseball, as has become increasingly outspoken during his rise. Last year, he won the NL Cy Young Award with 27 of 30 first-place votes, a reward fitting for his outlandish season. That leaves him as a free agent coming off a career year and looking to maximize his earnings as he will be in his 30s by the time next season rolls around. No one can argue that Bauer’s season last year was great, however, there is an argument to be made that he will not be worth the contact he is given.

Bauer had an incredible 2020 season, with a 1.73 ERA, .079 WHIP, and 100 Ks in only 73 innings of work. And like many other pitchers who have made a large jump, Bauer made tangible changes both to his pitches and his pitch mix. Although Bauer had a pretty steady velocity, his spin rate jumped off the charts. All of his pitches saw an increase in spin rate, but I’m going to focus on the fastball, with its 100th percentile spin (2776 RPM). His spin rate on his fastball increased by about 15% (up from 2412 RPM), and the active spin percent increased by 6.4 points.

Due in large part to his more effective fastball, which had a measly .140 Batting Average against, Bauer changed his pitch mix greatly. The first change was getting rid of the change-up, which he threw 7.6% of the time in 2019. In 2020, he only threw that pitch thrice. Bauer threw his aforementioned fastball about 5% of the time more and threw his curveball about 5% less. This gives credence to the belief that his season was not a fluke, but a breakout caused by a tangible change that can be sustained.

Although Bauer changed his pitches and pitch mix, luck still aided him. His Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP) against was .215, the second-lowest in Major League Baseball (the lowest belonging to Kenta Maeda at .208). The league average BABIP is always around .300, and Bauer’s career average is .294. Before last season, Bauer’s lowest BABIP in a full season was .276, a full .061 points above last year’s. In other words, for every hundred balls hit in play (not counting HRs) against him in 2020, about 6 fewer of those were hits than in his previous best year. It is nearly impossible to sustain a BABIP that low, and one must expect it to revert towards the mean in 2021 and beyond. Bauer did increase the pop-ups he induced, and decreased the line drives, both things that help lower BABIP, but his 2020 season still feels like a massive outlier. Furthermore, Bauer outperformed many of his expected stats in 2020. His Fielding Independent Pitching (same scale as ERA) was .37 better than expected, and his ERA was .44 better than expected. Finally, Bauer’s Left on Base Percentage (LOB%) increased by 20 points and increased by over 10 points over his career-high. Although his changes may have played a role in that, it is reasonable to expect some regression there as well, leading to giving up more runs.

Overall, there are reasons to believe that Bauer’s season was legit and can be repeated, and also reasons to believe it was a bit of a fluke. As with everything in the 2020 season, it has to be taken with a grain of salt, as there was a smaller sample. For Bauer, that meant about ⅓ of his normal season’s workload, in terms of both pitches and batted balls. However, there is no taking away that Bauer was amazing, and for him and Agent Rachel Luba, it is an opportune time to be entering free agency, especially as the no-doubt best pitcher available. Analyzing Bauer as a free agent, there are a myriad of factors to consider. He is entering his age 30 season, and although he said previously that he only wanted one-year-deals, it looks increasingly likely that this deal will be lengthy.

Although there is reason to believe that Bauer has turned a corner and become a no-doubt ace, I am worried about the contract he will receive from the team’s perspective. He works nonstop, and although he works hard to stay healthy, injuries can be inevitable with age, as seen with Justin Verlander. Furthermore, I believe Bauer’s Average Annual Value will be astronomical, as many have predicted he will earn somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 million a year. If Bauer repeats his 2020 season for the length of the contract, then it will pay off. However, I believe that his 2020 season was his 99th percentile outcome, and relying on that from a player is simply unfair. I believe that Bauer will be a good, even a great pitcher throughout his upcoming contract, although I am not as sure he will be a bonafide ace. If his BABIP and LOB% revert to his prior normal, which is reasonably likely, Bauer goes from a Cy Young candidate to a great starting pitcher, but not one worth his presumptive price tag.

Ultimately, Bauer will be paid to perform as he did in 2020, and although possible, that is very unlikely, especially over an extended period of time. The lowest BABIP any qualified pitcher has had from 2016 to 2020 (a period of 5 years, as that is similar to the length of Bauer’s contract), is .254 (Justin Verlander). This shows how exceptionally difficult it will be for Bauer to keep his BABIP this low, and if the BABIP returns to a more reasonable clip there will be a big difference in his final statistics. Although some might say that Bauer’s tangible changes to spin rate and pitch mix means his 2020 season was not an outlier but the new normal, I think it is a stretch to believe that. Overall, I think that Bauer will be a good signing for the team that gets him, although I do not think that he will live up to his presumptively lofty price tag that places him as a top 5-10 starting pitcher for the foreseeable future.

Written by Jacob Siegel

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading! Do you think Bauer is deserving of the big bucks? Was his 2020 season a fluke? Let us know in the comments down below!

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