While We’re Waiting… Cleveland. WE WANTZ ALL YOUR PROSPECTS!
December 12, 2012
12 Days of Christmas: WFNY loving them some Cavaliers!
December 12, 2012
Trevor Bauer is all the talk all over Twitter, but I’ll be honest, I didn’t know much about him before yesterday. Well, there’s a lot of quirks about the Indians’ newest pitcher. First of all, he has a unique set of warm-up rituals to get ready to play the game. It includes a long toss session that can range from 340 to 400 foot throws. Just watch the video.
And then @JDM2119 pointed me to a video that Yahoo! Big League Stew posted over the summer which is really just a still photograph of Trevor and his high school buddy looking hip hop as their rap song plays in the background.
And finally, some video of him throwing back in UCLA. Bauer has a pretty violent-looking throwing motion. Seems to have a lot of personality.
57 Comments
Re the first video: I have no problems with any of that (but I’m not on the Tribe pitching staff. Yet.)
Re the second video: I have nothing but problems with all of that.
All I’m going to say is our new pitching coach is really going to get his money’s worth with all of these guys he has to keep an eye on and work with. I don’t envy him…with the addition of Bauer, the known issues of Masterson and Ubaldo, Carrasco coming off injury, and another young guy in McCalister…this must be the most challenging pitching staff to work with in all of MLB, in terms of work involved. He will be under intense and constant scrutiny and I do not envy him. I’ll be surprised if he ever gets any sleep.
I live in Phoenix and can say that last year the local sports guys were raving about Bauer, He came up for a few starts in July and was fairly erratic and was batted around a bit. The main thing was Kirk Gibson hated his pregame warm up and that the guy plays with like 17 different pitches (not an exaggeration). If you can find some of the post game interviews with Gibson after Bauer’s starts at first he seemed okay with it but within about a week, week and a half he started talking about how they are a team and no one is above that. My guess is with how old school Kirk and Charlie Nagy are, they were not interested in the guy.
From the SnakePit blog, some possible specific reasons for the disenchantment:
“Because when all other things are seen as equal, talent-wise, then things like personality and clubhouse chemistry can become more important, as a tie-breaker. And almost from the get-go, Bauer’s attitude and apparently unflinching belief that he, and only he, knew what was best for him, had apparently rubbed both team-mates and management the wrong way. That included frontline catcher Miguel Montero.
“When Miguel Montero was told that Trevor Bauer wanted to meet with him in part to tell the catcher how he liked to call a game when he pitches, Montero did a double take. “What? He’s going to tell me how to do my job?” Montero said after Thursday night’s loss to the Dodgers. A day later, Montero still seemed to find it difficult that a rookie having just recently been called up to the majors would make such a demand. And maybe the declaration was even harder to stomach because Bauer is 0-1 with a 9.82 ERA after two starts in Arizona’s rotation.
“Though that rift was supposedly patched up subsequently, it was hardly the most auspicious of starts, especially on a team where Kirk Gibson has made it pretty clear that there is no I in Diamondbacks. [Which I suppose would make it Damondbacks] Owner Ken Kendrick was typically forthright when asked about Bauer in October: “He is the employee, and in an employer/employee situation it’s incumbent on the employee to make adjustments to satisfy the needs of his employer… I think we all need to grow up and mature and learn from our elders, and hopefully Trevor will recognize the need to do that.”
“The same story noted, with apparent prescience, “if that does not get corrected, the pitcher’s potential may end up being fulfilled elsewhere.” That now will be the case. What that might end up being, it’s virtually impossible to tell. Almost everyone agrees that Bauer has the talent to succeed, but he is also a unique and special snowflake, and that temperament is going to need some special handling. He’s certainly much harder to project than Corbin or Skaggs,and that may also have factored into the Dianondback’s decision to pull the trigger on a trade, before Bauer could either reach his stellar potential, or flame out. Neither possibility would surprise me.”
From the radio interviews I listened to, he seemed like a pretty nice and likeable guy. I’m excited to see him on the tribe.
and if this is the reason, still good for us. A lot of dominant pitchers are cocky, flaming a-holes. Beckett, Pedro, Randy Johnson, Steve Carlton, Gaylord Perry, list is virtually endless.
If he flames out as a pitcher, he is going to need a new fallback to ‘shine…like a 24-carat diamond ring.” Rap, not it.
ok, most likely he did it in a cocky way. and I cannot believe you left off Clemens and Schilling from that list 🙂
but, why is it bad that a SP would want to discuss calling a game with a catcher ahead of time? shouldn’t they be working together?
Agreed. Bauer seems to be every pitcher we have grown to hate on opposing teams in the past decade not only because of their “he hate me” attitude but because they are great.
I’ll take him.
and that is still better than trying to coach pitchers in Colorado
I think the catcher was just offended because this guy was a rookie (and seemingly) trying to tell him what pitches he wanted to throw.
I thought of both those guys but was really trying to think of aces whose own teammates hate them. Wasn’t sure about Schilling, and I know Clemens had bros.
We got a pitcher and a rapper?! Arizona how foolish art thou?
Thankfully Francona is the manager under which this kid will work if it had been Acta or even worse Wedge, oy vey!
Couple that with Montero got a huge extension like a month earlier, he has a bit of an ego himself. Look at his contract, given his performance he’s way over paid. Again, their loss is our gain as I see it.
apropos of something, found myself surprised that I care so little that Choo is gone, or that Cabrera or anyone else might soon follow. Choo left so little impact on fans’ hearts and minds despite playing pretty darn well. Obviously, this is the legacy of the losing but fans were plenty upset when Colavito, Ray Fosse and others left horrible tribe teams.
Believe a lot of local fan interest in the Tribe has been killed the last few years.
He only pitched 4 games in the Bigs, I don’t see how he could have riled up the clubhouse all that much. From an ESPN article at the beginning of last season:
http://espn.go.com/mlb/spring2012/story/_/id/7676345/arizona-diamondbacks-trevor-bauer-quite-unique
“There are not a lot of people who even understand what he’s doing, but if you sit down and ask him the science and physics behind it, he’ll tell you because he knows,” Diamondbacks reliever J.J. Putz said.
“…I’m just very impressed about the way the kid goes about his work. People can say what they want about the quirkiness of it and how he’s a young guy, so how is he going to dictate what he does. But anytime you’re committed to something, whether it’s the right thing to do or the wrong thing, if you’re committed, it’s the right thing for you. People can say what they want, that it’s so unorthodox, but if he believes in it, it’s going to work for him.
“And I don’t think anybody is going to outwork that kid. He’s in the weight room all the time, doing his core work. The kid is dedicated. He’s a baseball junkie and he works his a– off.”
Not that everyone loves the Happy Gilmore warm-up pitch. “It scares me — he’s going to kill somebody,” Arizona catcher Miguel Montero said. “I don’t feel comfortable back there. He has his reasons for doing it, but I don’t think it’s the right thing to do. He’s throwing it right at you. I would prefer I wouldn’t have to catch it.”
“He keeps going out there with stuff like this and doing the things he’s doing, I don’t think anyone is going to have any problem with him,” Putz said. “He carries himself well, and he’s very respectful to everybody. I think he understands his place in the game right now, that he’s a young kid coming up, and he’s not afraid to ask questions, which is another good sign. I’m just very impressed.”
So the kid is confident, quirky and smart? It seems like he has some real talent, sometimes you need that personality to drive it. Hopefully the Tribe just hit a home run with this deal. It’s not often you can trade for a kid with this much raw potential.
And I think Montero’s real problem is he’s afraid of him…
You don’t think it’s because he’s a “quiet, inscrutable, hard-working” outfielder, do you?
Hornets nest, meet stick.
wow. No. (Quickly throws blanket over nest). Won’t care much if they trade Astrubal, Santana. Or even real Amurricans like Masterson and Kipnis (yanks blanket back off like tableclothe trick. Chuckles, tosses back on). Lack of bonding is the point.
He went to high school where I live. (Same one as Jamie Shields, part of “Trade a Hart High pitcher” week.) He said in Sports Illustrated that he transferred because people made fun of him. I spoke to a dad close to the program who also pitched in the minors, to see if the “made fun of” thing was true. He said he didn’t know, but he did know that “Bauer is kind of a d**k.”
Just my two cents.
(Tears blanket back off) But don’t you just love that we got a CF that’s fast, can steal bases, “plays the game the right way,” and is, ahem, “in the mold of Grady Sizemore”? (applies three quick strikes with the stick, flees from the conversation, laughing madly . . . )
The catcher believes it’s his job to call the game, I’m thinking.
he will be out of the league in two years.
i’ll take that wager.
i imagine the catcher and umpire walking towards 1B as Bauer warms up with a wooden cutout of a batter and throwing a 115MPH heater that rips its head off.
you know, I think Bauer is going to get along just fine on the North Coast.
Masterson is Jamaican.
well sure, but I would hope that catchers ask for some feeback from their pitchers. see what they are comfortable throwing in certain situations, etc.
if Bauer was trying to completely dictate, then he’s wrong. but, it seems more like Montero didn’t want any input from him, which is also wrong.
or we are reading way too far into this item. most likely winner.
Out of the league??? Never to return to MLB??? In two years??? I’ll take that wager as well.
well, you never know. Brent Lillibridge has only lasted 7yrs in MLB with an OPS+ of 68 for his career.
but, naw, top10 overall prospect Bauer, every MLB will give up on him much quicker than that.
I think a lot more fans are starting to realize that you aren’t going to re-sign Boras clients, and something is better than nothing, especially when that something is a highly projected, close to the majors, at a position of need guy.
If we trade for a 22 year old, meh-ranked shortstop prospect, fans would probably be pretty pissed.
[sighs, replaces blanket] But Grady is, uh, well, as Andy Sipowicz once said to Bobby Simone, ” You’re part something, aren’t you?” Mgbode will probably go with Jamaican again. [Matadors blanket onto shoulder as kicks hive, strolls away whistling with cane prop and a top hat perched on hivekeeper’s mask]
yeah, Francona can handle it. Just like he handled that whole Red Sox clubhouse thing so well…
catchers like to call games, for sure. but don’t forget, the pitcher is always the one in control. he has the ball in his hand, after all.
a jeweler he is not.
This is true but also may work for us. It sounds to me like this guy needs to be left alone. The coach should spend more of his time with the other guys you mentioned. Secondly, if Santana is catching I would rather see the hot dog vendor calling pitches. Again, let him throw what he wants. He either succeeds his way or fails his way and then needs help.
With the epidemic of arm injuries to pitchers, it shocks me how arrogant teams are about their own programs. It’s not like guys following more traditional methods aren’t getting injured. Also, I feel like I read something about Japanese pitchers using a similar long toss program, so this isn’t unprecedented. Also, if you take one look at Bauer’s twitter feed, half of his tweets are about the science and physics of pitching. Frankly, I’m excited to have a guy who cares that much about his craft and has a strong mental makeup (Stubbornness isn’t always bad. Kobe Bryant is stubborn. Being a sheep to your organization can be damaging, too.)…too many recent Indians pitchers have been good guys with weak psyches. I’m hopeful that the Indians say “Do whatever helps you win the most games, and let us know how we can best help you.”
wow. Seems he handled some interesting personalities there – Beckett, Lowe, Ramirez, Ortiz – pretty decently for a while.
.
My pitching coach in college had us follow a similar routine that took about 40 minutes for a pitcher to get warmed up before a game. Some of what he is doing makes a whole lot of sense like using his entire body to generate the force that he is using to pitch. Doesn’t mean that this is ineffective just because it’s outside of the traditional way of doing things. After all the whole goal of any warm up is to maximize performance and prevent injury. If he can go out and put together a quality start by doing this than there’s no problem. Also, I think we’ll start seeing more people doing some similar warm ups in the future.
They tell us you’re a pitcher.. you’re sure not much of a rapper.
/LouBrown’d
Apparently nobody at UCLA taught Bauer he could just “waive off the sign”?
Maybe “depressed@work” is really Colt. The name fits.
well, Colt should know as well as anyone that even when someone busts they can stick in the league somewhere for a few seasons.
Um. Yeah. Seems he won a World Series with some pretty HUGE personalities. Not surprised it didn’t last forever.
we don’t wear hoodies at this level, son.
naw, Sizemore is a Pacific Northwest good ole boy. Oh, and part awesome (before the debillitating injuries and all).
fair enough.
and, i’m sure some liked Clemens, but i have a hard time believing that most liked Clemens. even teammates. especially since he bounced around in the same division (red sox, blue jays, yankees). at least i hope they didn’t 🙂
better than Valentine managed the ones that were left.
we wear sleves though!
by my count he won two world series without handling those guys too well.
Oh snap!