Trevor Bauer is a Flame-Painted Car
At this point in the offseason, the Mets should focus on shoring up their weak spots, not adding frills and extravagances.
According to a report from Mark Feinsand of MLB.com, the Mets and the Angels are now the favorites to land Trevor Bauer. Coming days after the Mets lost out on George Springer, the report seems strange: if the Mets were unwilling to pay $150 million for six years of Springer, the theory goes, why would they be willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars for years of Trevor Bauer? Some fans will counter that Steve Cohen has deep pockets, he’ll want to make a splash after losing out on Springer, Bauer will turn the Mets into an instant pennant-winner, etc.
But in this case, the dissenters have a point. At the beginning of the offseason, Bauer made sense as a top-tier target for the Mets. But they went a different direction, and acquired Carlos Carrasco and Joey Lucchesi via trade. With Spring Training less than a month away and the Mets’ rotation getting close to being filled out, Bauer is no longer a fit.
For one, the Mets have other, more important priorities. First and foremost is left-handed relief: I argued this week at Metsmerized that the Mets’ left-handed bullpen situation is dire. My solution? They should sign both Brad Hand and Justin Wilson. At minimum, they should sign one of the two. But that should be priority one, and pursuing Bauer will only interfere with that goal. The Mets’ rotation is already pretty good, and their left-handed relief is near disaster level. Adding Bauer before signing a quality lefthanded reliever or two would be sort of like spending a week painting flames down the side of your car instead of fixing four flat tires.
There’s also the financial aspect. As much as Mets fans would like to believe that Steve Cohen is playing with monopoly money, willing to fling bundles of cash left and right on a whim, he’s spent his entire career finding good investments. Bauer himself, devoid of context, might be worth a nine-figure contract. But he’ll almost certainly take the Mets over the luxury tax, which they would prefer not to do. Signing Bauer will also make it vastly more difficult for the Mets to agree to contract extensions with Michael Conforto, Noah Syndergaard, Brandon Nimmo, Marcus Stroman, and Francisco Lindor. The Mets should lock most or all of those players up long-term. Bauer makes that difficult.
And then, of course, there’s Bauer’s longtime elephant in the room: he’s often really annoying. There are the claims of Twitter harassment and vitriol, of course, but I won’t get into those, because Bauer amplifying things that were tweeted at him on a public website seems more like an ethical gray area than cut-and-dried malevolence. I worry more about his constant self-promotion; his obsession with vlogging; his drawn-out free agency tour. Bauer’s personality and character are the opposite of what the Mets need right now.
Oftentimes, when they’re worried about free agents coming to New York, people bring up “temperament” and “character” in ways that turn out to mean nothing. “Pizza places are open all night here — there’s no way J.T. Realmuto can handle that!” But in Bauer’s case, the concerns are genuine. The clubhouse culture the Mets have cultivated is built on the closeness of the core group: Dom Smith, Pete Alonso, J.D. Davis, Jeff McNeil, Brandon Nimmo, Michael Conforto, etc. All the players the Mets have acquired so far — and most players, in general — probably wouldn’t find it difficult to ingratiate themselves into what seems like a nice, friendly group of guys. But Bauer, who craves media attention and opportunities to grow his brand, doesn’t seem the type to blend in with likeability.
There’s also the more concrete issue that Bauer, for some reason, wants to pitch every four days, which is an instant non-starter. Jacob deGrom is the Mets’ ace, and the entire rotation should be built around deGrom’s schedule staying regular and efficient. Repeat: Jacob deGrom is the center of the Mets’ rotation, and every other pitcher the Mets have should be utilized to make deGrom’s life as easy as possible. How do you think Trevor Bauer will handle that?
Yes, the Mets need starting pitching, and Bauer provides that. I’m not the type to call Bauer overrated or not worth it: he was genuinely dominant in 2020, and he’s put years of work into being the best pitcher possible. But right now, he’s not what the Mets need. Steve Cohen and Sandy Alderson have assembled an excellent roster, and their focus should be on filling the final small gaps. Basically, right now the Mets should be housekeeping, making sure the little things are in order. Shifting their focus to signing Trevor Bauer would be like buying a blaring new surround-sound system rather than turning on the dishwasher and folding the laundry.