Details about Trevor Bauer’s contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers have been revealed.
After months of waiting at the top of the free agency market, Trevor Bauer found a new home. There were conflicting reports about whether or not the reigning NL Cy Young winner was signing with the New York Mets, but it became official last week that Bauer would be signing with the Los Angeles Dodgers. At the time of the report, Bauer’s deal was listed at three-years, $102 million contract. But now, we have the official details of the deal.
According to Jabari Young of CNBC, Bauer is scheduled to make $38 million for the first year but can earn an additional $2 million if he were to opt-out of his contract, totaling $40 million. If that is the case, the Dodgers can defer $20 million for future payment.
In season two, Bauer makes $32 million but will make an additional $15 million if he were to opt out following that campaign, bringing the total to $47 million.
If Bauer remains with the Dodgers for the third and final year of his contract, the right-hander will be paid $32 million.
Bauer will be MLB’s highest-paid player for next two seasons
With this contract structure, Bauer is set to become the league’s highest-paid player for the 2021 and 2022 seasons.
Bauer is coming off the best season of his career. Through 11 starts, Bauer led the league in ERA (1.73), ERA+ (276), WHIP (0.795), hits-per-nine innings (5.1), shutouts (two) and complete games (two). As a result of putting up these impressive numbers, Bauer fended off Yu Darvish and Jacob deGrom to win the first Cy Young award of his career.
The Dodgers saw the San Diego Padres make extravagant additions in Blake Snell, Joe Musgrove and Darvish to their starting rotation and pivoted to sign Bauer. Now, the Dodgers hope that adding Bauer to a starting pitching lineup consisting of Clayton Kershaw, Walker Buehler, David Price and Julio Urias will help them repeat as World Series champions at the conclusion of the 2021 season.