Trevor Bauer’s initial 324-game suspension for violating Major League Baseball’s domestic violence policy was reduced to 194 games by an independent umpire, who also reinstated him.
Legal representatives for Bauer and his employer, the Los Angeles Dodgers, were informed Thursday afternoon of the arbitrator’s decision, which ends a seven-month appeals process and brings some clarity to a saga that has unfolded over the past year and a half.
Bauer has served just 144 games of the suspension, but referee Martin Scheinman essentially credited him for the time he served on MLB’s suspension list during the second half of the 2021 season. Bauer will be paid for the first 50 games of the 2023 season but will be officially reinstated on Friday.
The Dodgers then have 14 days until Jan. 6 to decide whether to release him or add him to their 40-man roster.
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The Dodgers didn’t expect a decision until sometime in January and were caught by surprise when they were notified three days before Christmas and learned the results of the ruling about a half-hour before MLB released a statement to the media, a source close to the situation said ESPN. The Dodgers only countered with a brief statement, which read, “We have just been informed of the umpire’s verdict and will respond as soon as possible.”
Bauer’s legal team – consisting of Jon Fetterolf, Shawn Holley and Rachel Luba – also issued a statement, which read: “While we are pleased that Mr Bauer was reinstated immediately, we disagree that any disciplinary action would have been taken said Mr. Bauer is looking forward to his return to the field where his goal remains to help his team win a World Series.
Bauer is entering the final year of a three-year, $102 million contract he signed with the Dodgers in February 2021. His suspension will have cost him $37.5 million from that contract. The Dodgers saved about $28 million of his salary in 2022 and will save about $9.5 million in 2023, a circumstance that could allow them to drop below the luxury tax threshold. Bauer’s remaining salary of $22.5 million is guaranteed even if the Dodgers release him.
Despite the cut, Bauer’s suspension is the longest in more than seven years of a domestic violence policy jointly agreed by MLB and the MLB Players Association in 2015.
“While we believe a longer suspension was warranted, MLB will honor the neutral umpire’s decision, which maintains the longest-ever active player suspension for sexual assault or domestic violence,” MLB wrote in its statement Thursday. “We understand that this process was difficult for the witnesses involved and we thank them for their participation. Due to the collectively negotiated confidentiality provisions of the joint programme, we are unable to provide further details at this time.”
Bauer, the 31-year-old former Cy Young Award winner, has faced sexual assault allegations since a San Diego woman obtained a restraining order against him in late June 2021. Bauer denied her allegations and remains in a legal battle with the woman, who ESPN declined to name. Two other Ohio women made similar assault allegations to the Washington Post, which Bauer and his legal team have also denied.
LA prosecutors declined to prosecute Bauer in February, but MLB issued him a 324-game suspension on April 29, twice the previous longest suspension under their policy. Bauer then became the first player to appeal, sparking a lengthy process in which a three-person panel — consisting of one representative from MLB, another from MLBPA, and Scheinman appointed by both parties — reviews the findings and interviews witnesses to determine whether to maintain, reduce or lift a suspension.
The subsequent complaints hearing began on May 23 and progressed in stages until the end of December. The San Diego woman testified three times, a source with knowledge of the situation said. One of the Ohio women also testified, but the other resigned, according to the Post.
Bauer has not reported back since June 20, 2021. The following day, the then 27-year-old San Diego woman filed a request for a domestic violence restraining order (DVRO), alleging that Bauer assaulted her over the course of two sexual encounters at his home in Pasadena, California. in April and May of this year. The woman claimed he choked her unconscious multiple times, repeatedly scratched and punched her all over her body, sodomized her without consent and left her with injuries that warranted a trip to the emergency room after the hard sex. Bauer and his lawyers Fetterolf and Luba rejected the allegations and called them “fraudulent” and “baseless” in an initial statement.
MLB first placed Bauer on administrative leave on July 2, 2021, sparking an investigation. Afterwards, the two Ohio women made similar allegations to the Post. In August 2021, one of the women told the Post that she filed for a DVRO against Bauer in June 2020, accusing him of choking and hitting her during sex without consent and sending threatening messages. That woman, the Post reported, repudiated her injunction six weeks later after Bauer’s attorneys threatened legal action. The second woman claimed to the Post that Bauer had choked her unconscious multiple times since 2013 without consent.
MLB said it conducted “a full investigation” into Bauer’s off-field behavior, but did not release details of its findings, nor did it reveal how many women made allegations of assault against him. Bauer, meanwhile, has denied any wrongdoing and has posted lengthy threads via his Twitter account – some with screenshots of private text messages – in an effort to show his approval after each of the three women’s allegations. After the LA County Attorney’s Office declined to file criminal charges in February 2022, Bauer posted a seven-minute video on YouTube in which he categorically denied the San Diego woman’s version of events.
The prosecutor’s office ruled six months after a Los Angeles judge denied the San Diego woman a permanent restraining order, dismissing charges of assault, sodomy of an unconscious person and domestic violence. But MLB, which sources said had heard similar allegations from several women, suspended Bauer three months later.
Before Bauer, 15 players had been suspended under the domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse policy introduced in August 2015. The policy, jointly agreed with the MLB Players Association, grants MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred the autonomy to suspend players even if they are not charged with a felony and do not require them to meet the proof threshold required by the country’s law enforcement agencies. Those suspensions – not including that of former aide Felipe Vazquez, who is serving a jail term for sexually assaulting a minor – ranged from 15 to 162 games and were the result of negotiated settlements in which players waived their right to appeal. Bauer is the first such player to have more than one publicly known accuser.
The Dodgers canceled Bauer’s planned bobble-head night and removed his merchandise from their stores shortly after MLB first placed him on administrative leave in the summer of 2021, but they have barely publicly commented on his situation. Uncertainty over the umpire’s decision was thought to be the main reason the Dodgers, who were reluctant to cross the luxury tax threshold for a third straight year, stayed away from Star Free Agents for the most part this offseason.
For the past several months, Bauer has continued to fill his YouTube channel with videos of him participating in lively bullpen sessions and sharing pitching tips. Shortly after the referee’s decision was released on Thursday, he posted a tweet:
The vlog of the 2023 season will be 🔥🔥! Can’t wait to see you in a stadium soon!
— Trevor Bauer (@BauerOutage) December 23, 2022
Bauer has filed defamation lawsuits against two media outlets, Deadspin and The Athletic. He also filed a lawsuit against the San Diego woman, which followed with a counterclaim in August. On November 23, US District Court Judge James Selna allowed the San Diego woman to continue her lawsuit and dismissed Bauer’s defamation lawsuit against one of her former attorneys. In his ruling, Selna wrote that LA Superior Court Judge Dianna Gould-Saltman’s initial denial of the injunction did not determine whether Bauer committed an act of abuse, and neither party asked her to make such a determination.
“The state court case did not necessarily rule that Bauer did not hit or sexually assault him [the woman]’ Selna added.
Bauer won the 2011 Golden Spikes Award at UCLA and was the No. 3 pick in the MLB draft that year. He clashed with teammates in Arizona, resulting in a trade-off after his first full season, and had two notable incidents in Cleveland, allegedly cutting his finger with a drone and throwing a baseball over his head before a 2016 playoff start Midfield fence tumbled after being removed an outing on July 28, 2019, three days before trading again.
Bauer clashed with Manfred over his handling of the Houston Astros sign-theft scandal and the commissioner’s efforts to market the game to younger audiences, among other things. Bauer has built a reputation as a difficult teammate, but is also considered one of the most forward-thinking, analytical pitchers in the sport.
Bauer pleaded for a Cy Young Award in 2018 and then won it during the 2020 season with the Cincinnati Reds shortened by COVID-19. The Dodgers signed him later that offseason and outbid the New York Mets despite rampant criticism of Bauer’s history of bullying others on social media.
Bauer hit like an ace for Los Angeles in the first half of the 2021 season, posting a 2.59 ERA in 17 starts. He hasn’t peed since then. And now the question is will he ever make it back to the majors.