When Trevor Bauer’s suspension was shortened and he was reinstated on December 22, it put the Dodgers on a two-week deadline to either put him on their 40-man roster or release him. That deadline is this Friday, and there are conflicting reports on what the team plans to do.
Former MLB star pitcher David Cone talked about the Bauer situation on his podcast, “Toeing the Slab,” and specifically about the impossible situation the Dodgers find themselves in.
Here are some key lines, but we recommend you listen to Cone’s full monologue.
“It’s a PR nightmare for any team. … On the pitching side, he’s a savant. … On the off-the-field stuff and what allegedly happened, that is poison.”
The comments on Instagram, of course, fall back on the old “he was proven innocent” talking points so popular among people who don’t understand what “proven” or “innocent” mean. Those comments underscore Cone’s point about it being a PR nightmare. There are extreme viewpoints on both sides of the Bauer debate, and whatever the Dodgers do, one of those groups is going to be very angry.
Which is why the most likely course of action for LA will be to do what they believe is right, regardless of what the vocal factions think. Someone’s going to be mad either way, so there’s not really any point worrying about that side of things.
Of course, even “do what’s right” means different things to different people. Will they prioritize baseball over everything else? A case could be made that they should. Will they focus on the fact that Bauer just served the longest suspension in the history of MLB’s joint policy on domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse, and that he’s the only player ever suspended for sexual assault? There’s a pretty strong case there, too.
But yeah, if you were to define a “PR nightmare,” it would probably be something along the lines of “no matter what we do, we’re going to alienate a big chunk of our fans.”
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