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Yesterday it was announced that the Los Angeles County district attorney will not be pressing criminal charges against Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer. This ruling comes from a five-month investigation into allegations that Bauer sexual assaulted a San Diego woman. With Bauer not facing any legal charges it will now be up to Major League Baseball to hand out a punishment on Bauer, but will they?

Bauer signed a three-year $102 million-dollar free agent deal with the Dodgers before the start of last season. Now due to these allegations Bauer made just 17 starts for the Dodgers last season as he spent the majority of the season on administrative leave. Bauer went 8-5 with an ERA of 2.59 while pitching 107 2/3rds innings in those 17 starts last season. So, it was looking like Bauer was on his way to having a very good season in his first year with the Dodgers until it was ended by these charges.

Now there’s not only the question of if or what Major League Baseball might do with Bauer, but do the Dodgers want him back? There were a lot of reports last season when his status was up in the air that the other Dodgers players didn’t want him in their locker room. It was never said which Dodgers players it where that didn’t want Bauer back in that locker room, but you have to wonder how they feel about the chance of him returning sometime during the 2022 season.

I seriously doubt the Dodgers would release Bauer as he’s owed $45 million dollars for the 2022 season and $17 million dollar for the 2023 season. Now Bauer does have an opt out after this season, but you have to wonder if he opted out how many teams would be interested in him even if he has a good 2022 season.

Even though no charges will be filed against Bauer and that makes him innocent so to speak you have to think this incident will follow him for possibly the rest of his baseball career. I just don’t see a way for him to get people to forget about this.

Bauer pitched his last game for the Dodgers on June 28th, so he’s already been out for three months of the 2021 baseball season. Will Major League Baseball consider that enough discipline or will he be suspended to start the 2022 season? I should add in that is if and when we have a 2022 baseball season. I’ll be interested to see how Major League Baseball rules on this.

Now as always, I want your opinion on this. How do you think Major League baseball will handle this situation with Bauer? Was the three months he missed last season enough? Or do you think that Major League Baseball will suspend him for the 2022 season? And if so, how long will they suspend him for?

As we saw at the trade deadline last season the Chicago Cubs traded away their upcoming free agents, Kris Bryant Javier Baez and Anthony Rizzo in sperate deals. Now there are reports out there that the Cubs have shown quite a bit of interest in bringing Rizzo back into the fold.

Cubs team President Jed Hoyer has brought Rizzo to every team he’s been involved with starting back with the San Diego Padres in 2011 were Rizzo made his major league debut. Hoyer along with Theo Epstein then traded for Rizzo when they were hired by the Cubs. Rizzo then spent the next 10 years as the Cubs first baseman before they dealt him to the New York Yankees last season.

Rizzo was a very good player for the Cubs and was heavily involved in the community as well. The question becomes, does bringing Rizzo back help this team? Obviously signing Rizzo would add a quality bat to their order and he’s a Gold Glove defender having won four in his career, but are the Cubs in a position to actually win? If adding Rizzo was the final piece of the Cubs puzzle then it could be a very good signing, but unless there are a lot of other signings coming down the road you have to wonder how much help adding a player like Rizzo will be.

Of course, there’s also the question of if Rizzo would be interested in returning to the Cubs and Chicago. When Rizzo resigned with the Cubs, he gave them what can only be described as a hometown discount. It’s doubtful that he’d be willing to take less money to return to the Cubs, but if he doesn’t have any other serious offers maybe there’s a chance, he ends up back in a Cubs uniform.

Again, what do you think? Do you see Rizzo signing back with the Cubs? Or will another team step up and sign Rizzo? If you don’t see him signing with the Cubs which team, do you think he lands with?

Don’t forget to check out the live edition of Sports Time Radio on BlogTalkRadio.com. This Friday Schaumburg Stu will make his Super Bowl picks. Not only will he give you the winner, but he’ll predict the final score and who he thinks will win the MVP award. You’ll want to tune in for that and speaking of tune in if you happen to miss the podcast well just head over to TuneIn.com and you can listen to the podcast any time you want to.

If you’re interested feel free to look me up on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.