When Trevor Bauer hit back at Cleveland Guardians for demonizing his character in wake of salary arbitration hearing win
MLB All-Star Trevor Bauer did not have a good time with his Cleveland Guardians teammates and once himself claimed that he was good at "p*ssing" people off.
In 2019, Bauer blasted the Guardians for mudslinging after scoring big in a salary arbitration hearing. Bauer beat Cleveland in arbitration and was awarded $13 million instead of the Indians' $11 million offer.
With the exception of the final 10 minutes (which he perceived as a "character assassination" against him), Bauer believed the Cleveland Indians had made a stronger overall case against him in a salary arbitration hearing. He said:
"They spent the last 10 minutes of the case trying a character assassination," Bauer told reporters. "I learned that giving to charity is a bad thing. I learned that agreeing with someone on a podcast just for the sake of argument that I was worth $10.5 million ... should be the definitive answer why I'm not worth $13 [million].
"You never know how the character assassination plays, and considering that's what ended it, it kind of put a black mark on what I thought was a really well-argued case on both sides," Bauer added.
"There's not room for that. Let's just stick to the numbers. Let the numbers tell the story. You don't need to bring character assassination into it, especially for charitable campaigns."
By 2016, Bauer was well-known, and in 2018, he made his lone and only All-Star appearance. He became the first Cincinnati Reds player to win the Cy Young Award during the 60-game 2020 MLB season.
Trevor Bauer conceded that he did rub people the wrong way
Trevor Bauer talked about annoying people as though it were a natural talent.
“I’m good at two things in this world,” he said to Sports Illustrated, “throwing baseballs and p**sing people off.”
In addition to his image as an iconoclastic rebel, he also got into a lot of trouble with a sexual assault case. There were those who demanded that Bauer face MLB punishment in the well-reported instance.
Despite Trevor Bauer not being charged criminally, the league did suspend him for two years. He also received little-to-no support from his Los Angeles Dodgers colleagues during that time.