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Embattled baseball star Trevor Bauer says he wants another shot at pitching in the Major Leagues, calling himself “one of the best pitchers in the world.”
In March of 2023, Trevor Bauer claimed that it was his “dream” to play baseball in Japan after no Major League Baseball team would sign him to a contract during the offseason.
Of course, no one believed him. He signed with the Yokohama DeNA BayStars of the Nippon Professional Baseball Organization on a 400 million yen (approximately $3 million) contract after at one point being the highest paid player in the game.
Now, the 2020 National League Cy Young Award winner admits he wants to be back on a MLB team for the 2024 season.
In an interview on America’s Newsroom on Thursday, Bauer told anchor Bill Hemmer, “I know I’ve made mistakes. That’s kinda what I’m trying to focus on. How do I get better from the experiences that I’ve had. I’ve made mistakes in my personal life. I’m really detail-oriented when it comes to baseball and my training, but I didn’t apply the same level of scrutiny to my personal life.
“I made mistakes. I agreed to do things I shouldn’t have done. I was reckless. It hurt a lot of people along the way. I made things very difficult for Major League Baseball, for the Dodgers, my teammates, my friends, family, people close to me. So, I’ve done a lot of reflecting on that and made a lot of changes in my life to address that. I’m not having casual sexual relationships anymore, for example.”
Bauer added that in the past he “was very immature with how I handled things when people would write things about me I didn’t agree with.”
He also claimed he was bullied a lot as a kid, so he viewed a lot of his responses on social media as standing up for himself, adding, “And I think I was just immature.”
“I’ve grown up a lot, for sure,” Bauer claimed. “My viewpoints now are drastically different than they were five years ago, 10 years ago. Different things are important to me.”
He certainly sounds contrite and after going 11-4 with 160 strikeouts and a 2.59 ERA in Japan he is still just 33-years-old.
Any team that signs Trevor Bauer, however, will still have to deal with some baggage.
This past June, Bauer was accused of multiple, very serious assaults by another woman – the fourth to make similar public allegations against him.
“I’d love to play baseball. That’s my goal — to play baseball here in the United States. Still one of the best pitchers in the world. I’d like to compete at the highest level,” Bauer told Hemmer. “I’m also really passionate about helping people, being good for the game. I think I’ve done a lot of damage, unfortunately, in the first half of my career, and I’d love a second opportunity to do things better.”
On the plus side for him, he has at least one former Dodgers teammate in Mookie Betts who hopes that he gets it.