3 Reasons why Trevor Bauer might choose the Seattle Mariners

The Seattle Mariners could use starting pitching and Trevor Bauer could fill that need. There are three reasons why Bauer may find Seattle intriguing.

The former Cincinnati Reds starting pitcher Trevor Bauer is a free-agent and the hottest pitching commodity on the free-agent market. The Seattle Mariners are looking to fill several needs in the offseason and starting pitching is one area to improve on.

Bauer was recently announced as an NL Cy Young Award finalist which comes with no surprise at all. The 29-year-old is competing against Yu Darvish and Jacob deGrom for the 2020 Cy Young Award but for me, Bauer is my favorite to take the trophy this year.

The former first-round pick of the 2011 draft received a qualifying offer from the Reds worth $18.9 million, but I do not expect Bauer to accept it. The hard-throwing right-hander is set to be paid after an amazing 2021 season and would be wanting more than $18.9 million per year.  Players who received qualifying offers, including Bauer, must accept or decline offers by November 11th.

You may be asking, how good was the UCLA Bruins product was in 2020? Bauer had a league-leading 1.73 ERA, two shutouts, 0.795 WHIP, and 276 ERA+. He also struck out 100 batters and averaged 12.3 strikeouts per nine innings.

Besides his excellent performance in the shortened regular season, Bauer quickly became a controversial player in the MLB. Some liked Bauer’s activity on social media and his showboating, while some disliked it. But when you performed as well as Bauer did in 2020, you could practically get away with anything on the field.

Bauer also told the Twitter world that he is open to any team. This gives Mariners fans more hope that Bauer is willing to listen, and weigh all the options. Seattle has a few good reasons for Bauer to join the Mariners during the offseason.

Let’s look at the reasons why he might be calling Seattle home in the near future.

Driveline Baseball, headquartered in Kent, WA has done a lot for Bauer’s game

Videos have surfaced of Bauer’s abnormal pregame routines and that is a part of Driveline Baseball’s workout regime. Driveline has gained more and more traction in the big leagues, helping baseball players reinvent themselves through heavy reliance on data analytics.

Bauer is the biggest MLB star that has relied on Driveline and has become a huge ambassador for the program, helping Driveline scale up. Since working together in 2013, Driveline helped Bauer improve his mechanical patterns and then his secondary pitches. A lot of the focus has turned to spin rate especially on secondary pitches, and Driveline was one of the first programs to preach it.

Driveline was founded in Washington state and still has headquarters in Kent. Kyle Boddy founded Driveline in 2007, who started the program to help young players learn about baseball. Boddy grew Driveline on the principle that the game was evolving and wanted to teach his clients how to maximize their potential.

In 2019, the Reds hired Boddy to a two-year contract as the director of pitching initiatives and pitching coordinator. He joined Caleb Cotham who was a new hire for the director of pitching, and a former Driveline trainee. This happened to be the same year Bauer was playing for the Reds so you could imagine Bauer did some persuading to get Boddy to join him in Cincinnati.

With all that being said, Driveline and Bauer have a close relationship and you wonder if that will have an impact on Bauer’s free-agency decisions. I think it will and be a good reason for Bauer to pick Seattle. The free-agent pitcher would have easier access to the headquarters during the offseason. According to the Seattle Times, Bauer already has a house in Maple Valley where he usually spends his offseason to commute to Driveline’s facility.

The Mariners have room for a star player and star attitude

As mentioned before, Trevor Bauer’s social media and showboating have sparked mixed reactions among players and fans. My feeling is that Bauer likes the spotlight and wants to be the center of attention. For example, the starting pitcher founded Momentum, an athlete-driven media company in 2019.

Bauer has a YouTube show through Momentum where he invites players around the leagues to have entertaining conversations. The former Reds pitcher is an innovative guy and not to sound critical, but he likes attention. There is nothing wrong with that, but I think a person like Bauer would want to play for a team where he can be “The Guy.”

He loves to showboat, show his emotions on the field and loves to start discussions on Twitter. The only way I can understand all of this is that Bauer wants to be the star of a winning team. Last season, he proved to be one of the best Reds players but he still was not really the face of the organization. The Reds still had Joey Votto and Sonny Gray.

The Mariners have a very young group of players and none have completely taken the spotlight with the exception of Kyle Lewis who will most likely win Rookie of the Year. But even then, Kyle Lewis has only had one full season in the Major Leagues and is not a renowned star across the league yet. Kyle Seager is another fan favorite but he is not playing as well as Bauer.

In the pitching staff, Marco Gonzales has been the lone bright spot and leader in the past few years. Gonzales had an All-Star like season in 2020. The current Mariners ace is very mellow and reminds me a lot of Seahawks QB Russell Wilson. I love Marco, but he is not quite a star yet and is not seeking attention. Having a Bauer and Gonzales duo could be deadly and a nice balance of a showoff and a humble personality.

The Mariners’ young core is looking better and I am sure Bauer is thinking the same thing. The Mariners have a real shot of being competitive starting next season, and Bauer is looking to join a winning team that is willing to pay up. The Mariners need a star, and Bauer could be that star. And the Mariners have room for egos and giving up some attention to Bauer.