Dodgers DFA Trevor Bauer after needlessly long deliberation period

Let's stick strictly to the facts here, as former Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Trevor Bauer has so often demanded.

When the Dodgers signed Bauer to a three-year, $102 million contract prior to the 2021 season, that was a tremendous mistake. Bauer brought a documented history of online harassment of women (read: college students) into his tenure in Los Angeles. The team had very little explanation for why they were willing to make such a large financial bet on such a person of dubious character.

Then, allegations of sexual misconduct were levied, with multiple accusers emerging. One victim who alleged sexual assault took Bauer to court. Though the court of law ultimately declined to prosecute, MLB found enough overwhelming evidence of misdeeds to levy a record-setting 324-game suspension for Bauer under the league's Domestic Violence Policy.

Though that suspension was cleaved this offseason by an arbiter and sliced at 194 games, Bauer was still DFA'd by the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday, ending his career in Los Angeles.

Dodgers DFA starter Trevor Bauer after 194-game suspension

A Los Angeles Times poll, published this week, showed that a majority of Dodgers fans actually wanted Bauer to remain with the organization in 2023. After all, his salary would hamstring the team either way; the Dodgers are on the hook for the sum total regardless of Bauer's presence.

That said, the preference of most of the fans did not seem to be purely financial in nature. Those in favor of keeping Bauer had adopted him as their cause célèbre; this was about far more than baseball to a certain sect of humanity.

The Dodgers now have seven days to find a trade partner for Bauer before he is released, something they were presumably trying to do while waiting on making this decision as long as they possibly could. Bauer will play Major League Baseball again, likely this season, certainly far from LA.

It's now up to the rest of baseball to decide whether they would like to roster someone who was not found guilty in a court of law, but who did enough wrong to earn the largest suspension under this particular policy's history as one of the governing principles of Major League Baseball (a far-too-short history; the policy is younger than Corey Seager).

That team will not be the Los Angeles Dodgers, though they clearly preferred to wait until the limits provided by a Friday news dump to make the news official/hidden to as many angry partisans as possible.

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