On April 9th, the newly renovated center-field scoreboard at U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago received a christening. A drone, flown by one of the Cleveland Indians players, crashed into the new giant screen:
A Cleveland Indians player crashed a drone into the new video board (@AnthonySouffle) pic.twitter.com/VX9NkxLT7K
— Lauren Comitor (@laurencomitor) April 9, 2016
With little effort, it’s easy to conclude that it was Trevor Bauer‘s drone that bombarded video board. The eccentric righty hopes that recording his motion with the drone will pay further dividends in 2016.
A hamstring injury to Carlos Carrasco on Sunday will open another opportunity for Bauer to start. Bauer pitched 3 1/3 good innings of relief on Sunday and is the likely candidate to move into the rotation to replace Carrasco. Bauer has spent a majority of his career as a starter but was moved to the bullpen after losing out to Cody Anderson and Josh Tomlin during spring training competition. Bauer’s career inconsistencies, as will be touched on below, was one of the contributing factors in putting him in the ‘pen.
The Indians already are carrying eight relievers, so moving Bauer to the rotation would not require major changes to the bullpen in all likelihood.
Bauer now has two full years and three weeks with the Indians in the majors, and at a glance, they haven’t been noteworthy; he has yet to get his FIP under 4.00 and though his strikeout rate has been decent, his walk rate has not, but he is still only 25 and he still presents some interesting possibilities.
After consecutive seasons with more than eight strikeouts per nine, Trevor Bauer is an interesting “x-factor” as a starter. His first relief appearance on the season didn’t go great; he allowed two hits, a walk, and a home run in an inning of work; but his velocity did play up 1.5 mph compared to last season as a starter.
It’s easy to look at Bauer’s numbers from last year and see a guy who was disappointing. The one factor that stands out isn’t a good one; his walk percentage was terrible, the highest among qualified starters at 10.6%.
Bauer did show some flashes of excellence last year. His numbers aren’t as much a reflection of consistent poor performance as they are a mix of encouraging outings with very bad ones. Bauer started nine games in which he gave up zero or one runs. He started ten in which he gave up five or more (including six games when he didn’t even make it out of the fourth inning). He got off to something of a hot start, with double-digit strikeouts in three games by the end of May. He didn’t repeat that performance once for the rest of the year. More so than in 2014, Bauer showed that when he’s good, he is one of the Indians best starters and when he’s bad, he can make you want to throw a baseball through the T.V.
Separate from the poor command that’s resulted in Bauer’s walk trouble, his most notable weapon as a pitcher is how remarkably deep his arsenal is. Just in what he threw last year, a complete encyclopedia of pitches: fourseam fastball, curve ball, slider, sinker, change-up, splitter, cutter. Of course, being able to throw seven pitches doesn’t mean being able to sequence them well in the right count, and in Bauer’s case, more pitches have seemed to lead more to inconsistency than anything else.
The sample size is too small to form any conclusions this season. So far, his fastball velocity is up ranking in the top 20 for relievers. Both his FIP and xFIP are down from last season. The game-to-game inconsistencies are still present, however and still a concern. He gave up two earned runs in only one inning in his first relief appearance. In his following three outings, he struck out six while walking one and did not give up an earned run.
Depending on how long Carrasco will be out, Bauer could get three or four starts to show Francona and the rest of the Indians he can be the pitcher they have envisioned for the past couple seasons.
Too keep pace with the White Sox, they will need it.
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