Astros should take a chance on Trevor Bauer

Trevor Bauer is phenomenal. Yes he has a relatively rough personality, but the dude is a genuine asset. No team is willing to take the risk on because of a incident he was cleared of charges for. He deserves a second chance in the bigs and we’ve fielded players before who didn’t. (Osuna)

Yes him and Alex Bregman do not get along, but with the current way things are looking it doesn’t seem like Bregman will be staying after 2024 and it looks like Bauer has no shot at anything besides a 1 year deal. Gives us a Ace level pitcher on a already stacked rotation that’s willing to play at league minimum with incentives only if he does well, and alleviates pressure that could be put on the team if a potential sophomore slump were to happen to one or two of our younger pitchers. (France, Brown)

It also gives us the ability to use either Garcia, or Urquidi in a game refresh role if one of our starters does get stomped early in a game. Bauer would cost just as much as it would to bring up Whitley who’s rumored to be getting a shot at show. (Like we haven’t seen this before) I’m a lot more confident in Bauer’s ability over most if not all pitching prospects we have.

Worst case scenario if he does poorly, we hurt our relationship with Bregman who does not look interested in playing in Houston after the year anyway and we can still slap Bregman with a contenting offer and get draft pick for him. We pay Bauer league minimum, and trade him at deadline for prospect haul to help with this very scary impending rebuild/retool that will have to happen in 2026. I believe most teams would be willing to trade for Bauer, but don’t want The initial backlash of signing him.

Best case, he returns the form, the Astros now have a 6 headed giant pitching rotation, and nightmare bullpen if you are behind after the 7th inning. We pay Bauer, Correa’s 2019 (5M) salary for a pitcher who’s realistically worth, 10 to 15 mil.

Borderline win win on both outcomes.