How Big of a Difference Does Trevor Bauer Make?

How Big of a Difference Does Trevor Bauer Make?

By: Daniel Primiani

Trevor Bauer is the type of pitcher who can make any team a playoff contender.

    The Trevor Bauer watch continues with the Toronto Blue Jays being the most recent team linked to the outspoken right hander. As the top free-agent arm still on the open market, these past few months must've been a pipedream for the talented hurler; Bauer has amassed a remarkably passionate following on social media over his nine-season MLB career and seems to have truly enjoyed documenting his free agent experience for his subscribers. Whether it be posting pictures of his airline ticket to Boston, Massachusetts with a cryptic message attached or donning a New York Mets ballcap in the wake of the Francisco Lindor trade whilst gushing about his admiration for the talented shortstop, Bauer certainly seems to enjoy tantalizing fanbases with hopes of him joining their team's starting rotations.

    And let's be honest, fans absolutely should be excited for this. Trevor Bauer has emerged as an elite, top-of-the-rotation type arm over the past four seasons or so. Ignore the pedestrian lifetime ERA that clocks in just a tick under 4.00; earned run average is a statistic that hardly gives us a full picture of a pitcher's effectiveness and does little to bely the player's true impact on the game. Since 2015, Bauer has seen his BB/9 rate decline at a relatively steady pace (another than a slight hiccup during his final half-season with the Cleveland Indians in 2019) while also seeing his strikeout rate climb from 8.7 per nine innings in 2015 to 12.3 in the pandemic shortened 2020 season. Outside of a truly remarkable 2018 season in which Bauer only allowed nine home runs in over 175 innings, his home run rate has remained essentially static, with an average of one home run allowed per nine innings. Coupled with the fact that Bauer has always done a great job at limiting opponent base hits, we begin to see a fuller picture of what Bauer has developed into: a strikeout machine who is doing a better and better job at limiting baserunners, thus mitigating the potential damage done by opponent long balls. If that doesn't sound like an ace, I don't know what does.

    What has been the impetus for Bauer's development? Looking at his pitch selection over the past few years, one thing that stands out is the fact that Bauer used to employ a changeup and/or split-fingered change about a quarter of the time (25.4% in 2012 during his cup of coffee with the Arizona Diamondbacks and then 28.8% of the time during his first season in Cleveland in 2013). He has gradually weened himself off of these two pitches over the past few years with him abandoning his splitter altogether in 2020 and throwing his changeup only 0.3% of the time (three total pitches). Why? What caused this change (no pun intended) in pitch selection? Well, long story short, ineffectiveness; Bauer's changeup always had below league average movement and we really saw him begin limiting his changeup use after a 2017 season that saw opponents tag it for a .305 batting average and a .542 slugging percentage. Essentially, hitters performed like Mike Trout against Bauer's changeup. Yikes!

    So, what did Bauer do? Well, he evolved as a pitcher. He took an analytical approach to his game and he dropped the changeup from his repertoire, bumped up his usage of his mid-80s cut-fastball, added a low-80s slider to his arsenal, and learned how to make better use his looping upper-70s curveball. Most recently, he managed to add almost two more inches of sinking movement on his four-seam football. From 2017-2019, his fastball moved a little more than an average MLB fastball, but, by and large, wasn't anything extraordinary. In 2020, though, he began getting more sink and run on his four-seamer and that yielded a .140 batting average against and a .224 wOBA. In layman's terms, hitters couldn't touch the heat and, if they did, it rarely resulted in them reaching base. You've got to give it to him; for as much talk as Bauer does on social media (which can irk some fans and opposing players alike), the dude knows the game, he knows what works, and he is REALLY good at maximizing his abilities to yield the best possible results.

    That brings us to this question: what is Trevor Bauer worth? Aside from the dollar amount (we know he's going to break the bank wherever he goes), the question I'm really posing is what exactly is his worth on the field? Well, in 2020, Bauer racked up 2.5 WAR (wins above replacement) in just eleven starts. Now, let's be clear, baseball is hardly a linear sport; it's hard to expound the numbers of a small sample size over the course of a full season, but let's just extrapolate what the outcome would be if Bauer were able to maintain his elite level of production over the course of a full one hundred sixty-two game season. The results? 7.5 wins above replacement. Statistically speaking, that's better than Justin Verlander's Cy Young season in 2019 and his runner-up finish in 2016. It's better than Tim Lincecum's Cy Young season of 2009 and Max Scherzer's award winning season in 2017. Point being? Bauer was really friggin' good in 2020. 

    Can Bauer reach these heights again? Well, I can't say for certain. Bauer's best full season came in 2018, when he put up 5.8 WAR. In 2019, Bauer spent about a third of the season trying to figure out how to pitch at Great American Ballpark, a notoriously hitter-friendly environment that skewed his year-long data as he allowed six homeruns in four starts at that particular venue down the stretch of that season. Prior to that little detour, Bauer looked to be on his way to posting a season WAR in the mid-to-high 3s. Fangraphs predicts that he'll post 3.8 WAR in 2021. Is that Cy Young-worthy? Maybe not, but it's good enough to put him in the conversation. Historically speaking, he'd rank among the top twenty-five pitchers or so for the season. A 3.8 WAR season equates to a 2019 Aaron Nola or a 2017 Dallas Keuchel. Such a season makes Bauer the type of player that could get a team on the cusp of contending over the hump or it could help transform a team already in contention into a World Series favorite. So, what will it be for the right hander out of North Hollywood, California? We'll just have to keep our eyes glued to Bauer's Twitter feed to find out.

Image courtesy of bleacherreport.com.