That Thing Trevor Bauer Doesn’t Want to Talk About

Trevor Bauer is one of the most interesting pitchers not just on the Indians roster, but in all of baseball. From his homemade drones to his analytically-minded approach to studying the art of pitching, he is truly a unique breed of ballplayer. Aside from interesting personality quirks, Bauer is a tremendously talented pitcher, although lately this hasn’t been as obvious as it may have been earlier in the year.

Bauer has made 23 starts for the Tribe this year, the first 11 of those were tremendous, the next 12 not so much.

Bauer has always had two major problems as a pitcher, he walks too many batters and he allows too many home runs. For the year, Bauer is walking 3.65 batters per 9 innings, the second highest rate among qualified pitchers in all of baseball. He’s allowing 1.47 HR/9, the 10th highest rate among qualified pitchers. However, this was not the case all season. Early in the year Bauer was walking a ton of batters but that was being offset somewhat by the fact that he wasn’t allowing many home runs. That all changed in June when his home run rate began to double, leading to the implosion we have witnessed over the last 2 months. 

Bauer’s struggles to keep the ball inside the ballpark aren’t likely to continue at the alarmingly high rate they are currently proceeding. July and August have been Bauer’s worst months for allowing home runs this season, 13 of his 23 allowed home runs have come in this month and a half span. 24.2% of the fly balls he gave up during the month of July went for home runs and 26.3% of fly balls have gone for homers in August. This is nearly 2.5 times the league average of about 10%. This rate is remarkably unsustainable, especially considering that he’s allowing fly balls, the obvious pre-requisite to a home run, at a lower rate than months prior. Bauer’s fly ball rate for the month of July was 36.3%, while his August fly ball rate is 39.6%, both lower than his season rate of 42.6% and career rate of 41.5%.

The fact that he’s allowing fewer fly balls, but more of them are going over the fence is important to note because a pitcher generally doesn’t have much control over the outcome of a fly ball. A fly ball to dead center in Comerica Park may travel 415′ and be caught on the warning track, but that’s a home run in almost every other park. Conversely, a fly ball down the left field line of Tropicana Field may travel 316′ and be a home run, but it’s probably not a home run in most high school fields. This tends to show that the amount of fly balls going for home runs will begin to regress to Bauer’s career average of 11.5%. 

But Bauer has always troubles with the home run ball and therefore bad luck and random variation is obviously not the definitive explanation as to why he’s doing so poorly now. An obvious answer is that Bauer is struggling with his command right now. No real surprise there, when a pitcher walks too many batters and allows a lot of home runs his command is obviously not what he wants it to be. However, when the results are this extreme you have to think he’s experiencing a particularly tough time controlling his pitches or he’s victim to extreme random variation.

Whatever the true explanation may be, Bauer’s control is something the Indians are going to have to be weary of going forward. There may come a time when Bauer’s control/lack thereof will force a move to the bullpen, or perhaps he’ll figure things out. He is just 24 years old and it’s not uncommon for young pitchers to struggle with command early in their career. Randy Johnson and John Smoltz, members of the most recent Hall of Fame class, struggled with command during the first 6+ years of their career, eventually figuring things out and becoming two of the best pitchers in all of baseball history. Now, will Bauer ever become a Hall of Fame pitcher? Odds are no. But he has the talent to be a top of the rotation starter for many years to come and if there were ever a pitcher that you shouldn’t bet against it’s Trevor Bauer. Anyone as smart and determined as he is shouldn’t be counted out, those types of competitors always seem to figure it out no matter what the odds.