There are so many reasons why Trevor Bauer to the Nationals would be fantastic.
Yes, some of it has nothing to do with baseball, but some of it does -- I promise.
I've said for weeks now on the Nationals Talk podcast how great of a free agent acquisition he'd be, and some of you are on the bandwagon, and some of you aren't.
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I'd like to bring a few more with me if I can.
First, after some ups and downs early on since breaking into the majors in 2012, he's pitched like a true No. 1 starter in two of the last three seasons. He had a 2.21 ERA over 175.1 innings in 2018. This year, he was second in the majors with a 1.73 ERA, and third in strikeouts with 100 over the shortened season.
MLB
The Nationals have always put a premium on pitching, and with Max Scherzer's deal up in a year, Stephen Strasburg's health in question, plus the backend of the rotation still being a question mark, Bauer fills a really important role in Washington.
Bauer has said he wants to pull a LeBron James and sign one-year deals to maximize his income, which if he holds true to that, is a great short-term solution for the Nationals while they work to develop some of their young pitching prospects.
If he wants to sign longer, well, let's see how long before we change our mind here.
Then there's the non-baseball stuff. He's never been afraid to speak his mind whether it's about commissioner Rob Manfred, PED's, or the horrible no good cheating Astros. He'd be wildly entertaining here in D.C. Obviously yes, there are limits to just saying anything, so hold off with your Twitter outrage, but you can't tell me hearing Bauer after every start tell you exactly the way he feels about the home plate ump versus some boring rehearsed nothingism isn't a hugely intriguing prospect.
There's gonna be a lot of teams likely after his services, and who knows, the price may get driven up, especially a team like the Angels who have no pitching and happen to be kind of close to where Bauer is from.
But, if it does work out, just remember who was on the bandwagon first, and there's still some time to join me.