Sports Time Radio

It was no surprise when the Cincinnati offered the $18.9 million dollar qualifying offer to pitcher Trevor Bauer. It also wasn’t a surprise when Bauer turned down that qualifying offer from the Reds.

Bauer is probably the best starting pitcher on the free agent market and you would think that there will be teams lining up to give him a multiple year deal, but with the economics of the game the way it is today will it be for at least $18.9 million dollars a season.

Now Bauer turns 30 years old in January and you’d think that he’d be getting offers of 5, 6 or even 7 years from teams and he may still get contract offers of that many years, but how much money will be involved in his new contract. Will we see Bauer get a contract offer where he’ll make $20 million dollars or more in a season?

Now you’d have to think if we weren’t dealing with this Covid-19 outbreak their might be more than one team offering Bauer a contract worth $20 million dollars or more per season. Now though teams could be dealing with the fact that they’ll either have no fans in the stands again or a limited number of fans in the stands. That means teams will be looking at another season of losing a large amounts of money and you have to wonder how this might affect contract offers to free agents.

Bauer appears to be worth #1 starter money. last season Bauer made 11 starts for Cincinnati totaling 73 innings. His won-loss record was just 5-4, but in two of those losses the Reds where shutout. Bauer also recorded two complete game shutouts himself. Bauer posted an ERA of 1.73 while striking out 100 hitters while walking just 17. There’s also a very good chance that Bauer will be picking up his first Cy Young award on November 11th. That’s a pretty goo resume for a starting pitcher who’s heading into free agency, but will the market be able to pay him what he appears to be worth?

There haven’t been any indications on which teams might be interested in Bauer, but he could fit with pretty much every MLB team. Bauer himself seems to have been showing some interest in joining the Boston Red Sox. He mentioned the Red Sox in a tweet, but he hasn’t said anything about them since that one time. You have to wonder if he’s actually interested in playing for the Red Sox or if he was just trying to get people talking about his free agency.

Who do you have Bauer pitching for next season? Also; how many years and how much money per year do you think he’ll end up getting?

Yesterday I flipped on the MLB Network just in time to here them say they had breaking news to announce; so I stuck around to see what they had to say.

Well that breaking news turned out to be that Alex Cora would be returning to manager the Red Sox on a two year deal. I’m under the impression that no one on the MLB Network is smart enough to tune in to the Sports Time Radio podcast because I’ve been saying this was going to happen since Ron Roenicke was removed as manager.

It was clear that with the injuries the Red Sox had and the fact that they traded Mookie Betts that the shortened 2020 season would be a year off for them and Roenicke was brought in just to tread water until Cora’s suspension was over. That’s exactly what happened.

Now after a season that saw the Red Sox finish 24-36 and in last place in the American League East division; can Cora turn them around?

Before being suspended Cora managed the Red Sox for two seasons. In his first season the Red Sox went 108-54 and won the World Series. In Cora’s second season the Red Sox weren’t as successful. They where just 84-78 and didn’t make the playoffs.

I doubt that something as simple as Cora returning will make the Red Sox a contender in 2021. They’ll need to get Chris Sale and Eduardo Rodriguez to return from injury and be the pitchers they where before they were hurt. They’ll also have to find a way to replace Betts. Alex Verdugo had a nice year for the Red Sox after being acquired in the Betts trade, but he’ll never put up the kind of numbers Betts did for Boston. The Red Sox like every other team in baseball have some other issues that they’ll have to try and repair; so I don’t think just bringing Cora back gets them into the playoffs next season.

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You can also find me on Twitter @Burketime