Former National League Cy Young Winner Trevor Bauer Makes Wild Claims on Social Media

Trevor Bauer, who recently re-signed in Japan for the 2025 season, made quite the stir on social media Tuesday night, even going at it with Hall of Famer Chipper Jones.
Cincinnati Reds starting pitcher Trevor Bauer (27) pitches in the first inning against the Chicago White Sox at Great American Ball Park in 2020.
Cincinnati Reds starting pitcher Trevor Bauer (27) pitches in the first inning against the Chicago White Sox at Great American Ball Park in 2020. / Jim Owens-Imagn Images

We learned last week that former National League Cy Young winner Trevor was re-signing in Japan for the 2025 season. After playing in Japan in 2023 and Mexico in 2024, Bauer will play again for the BayStars.

Now 34 years old, Bauer hasn't pitched in the major leagues since 2021. He was suspended in 2021 over a domestic violence allegation and ended up missing 182 combined games between 2021 and 2022.

He was never charged with a crime and the credibility of some of his accusers has come into question, but major league teams have stayed away, forcing him to continue his career other places.

Bauer has spent parts of 10 years in the big leagues with the Arizona Diamondbacks, Cleveland IndiansCincinnati Reds and Dodgers. He won the Cy Young with the Reds in the COVID-shortened 2020 season.

Bauer made the All-Star team in Mexico and won the league's version of the Cy Young Award. He went 10-0 with a 2.48 ERA in the regular season, striking out 120 batters in 83.1 innings. He also struck out 32 with a 1.67 postseason ERA as Diablos Los Rojos won the league championship.

Given how the legal situations unfolded, his major league success - and his recent success worldwide - Bauer believes he deserves another major league opportunity, and he's not shy about expressing that on his social media channels. On Tuesday, Bauer re-posted a post on "X" from @DanClarkSports, adding the following:

Second, behind Shohei. I don’t think anyone in America understands how big of a global superstar he is. I beat everyone else though, including outdrawing every single mlb team in daily views just on my YouTube channel alone. That includes their streaming and tv numbers btw.

I’m the second most popular player and the most knowledgeable pitcher on the planet. I’m also a top 10 pitcher on the planet and willing to play for $0. That’s minimum $50M value per year that you’d get for $0. But, someone very obviously lied about me one time so, I can’t go back to work. The absurdity of this situation is off the charts.

For what it's worth, Bauer cannot play in the United States for $0. He'd have to play for the league minimum, which is currently $760,000, but his point remains: He'll play for cheap.

Bauer also said that most of the world's best hitters are not a competition for him.

Then, Hall of Famer Chipper Jones chimed in that Bauer was making him laugh with the whole thing, to which Bauer replied:

"Happy to prove it anytime."

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Brady Farkas
BRADY FARKAS

Brady Farkas is a baseball writer for Fastball on Sports Illustrated/FanNation and the host of 'The Payoff Pitch' podcast which can be found on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Videos on baseball also posted to YouTube. Brady has spent nearly a decade in sports talk radio and is a graduate of Oswego State University. You can follow him on Twitter @WDEVRadioBrady.