Braves manager's reaction to Trevor Bauer proves Dodgers made right call

One of the biggest storylines around the Los Angeles Dodgers offseason was Trevor Bauer's future and how it would impact the team's financial situation. An independent arbitrator reduced Bauer's suspension, allowing him to pitch as early as Opening Day 2023, which put the Dodgers on the hook for $22.5 million.

After a two-week process in which the Dodgers weighed their options (and potentially even had trade talks for Bauer), the team decided to designate the 2020 Cy Young winner for assignment. Bauer became free to sign with any team and LA saved no money.

The conversation then shifted to which team would be willing to bring Bauer in despite his past and the PR nightmare that would come with it. After all, professional sports teams have been willing to turn a blind eye to other athletes' transgressions in the past for the sake of winning.

That might not be what happens with Bauer, though. Atlanta Braves manager Brian Snitker was recently asked about the potential of bringing Bauer to Atlanta. It was a rather emphatic "no" from Snitker, who did not even bother to raise his microphone to quickly reject that notion.

Another NL contender turning down Trevor Bauer proves Dodgers made the right call

The Braves are up there with the Dodgers as one of the premier contenders in the National League. Unlike the Dodgers, they could certainly use pitching. There are some promising young arms in that rotation, but with those arms come a lot of question marks.

If a team like the Braves (who, keep in mind, do still employ Marcell Ozuna) aren't going to even consider bringing Bauer in, then that might spell the end of his MLB career. Typically, it's teams like the Braves who are on the brink of being World Series favorites that would make a move like this and ignore the PR. It's unlikely that we'll see some small-market team in the middle of the league make this kind of signing.

This only furthers the point that the Dodgers, a team that doesn't need starting pitching, made the right decision. Los Angeles decided that Bauer and his past did not align with the organization's values and made a subsequent move to reflect that.

As long as other MLB teams have the same values, which the Braves are (slightly contradictorily) showing, then it's hard to find a landing spot for Bauer in Major League Baseball.

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