MINOR LEAGUE NUMBERS
Trevor Bauer came into the 2012 season as a top-12 prospect in baseball according to Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus and MLB.com.
2011: Went 1-2 with a 5.96 ERA and 1.52 WHIP over seven outings at High-A and Double-A ball.
2012: Spent time at Double and Triple-A making 22 total starts. Bauer went 12-2 with a 2.42 ERA, 1.29 WHIP and 10.8 K/9 rate over 130.1 innings.
2013: Made 22 starts at Triple-A going 6-7 with a 4.15 ERA, 1.58 WHIP and 7.9 K/9 mark over 121.1 innings
2014: Appeared in seven games at Triple-A going 4-1 with a 2.15 ERA, 1.09 WHIP and 8.6 strikeouts per nine over 46 innings.
TOTALS: 23-12, 3.31 ERA, 1.39 WHIP, 9.7 K/9, 4.5 BB/9 over 58 starts covering 323.1 innings.
MAJOR LEAGUE NUMBERS
2012: Appeared in four games with the D’backs going 1-2 with a 6.06 ERA and 1.65 WHIP.
2013: Dealt to the Indians and appeared in four games going 1-2 with a 5.29 ERA and 1.82 WHIP.
2014: In his first extended work in the bigs he went 5-8 with a 4.18 ERA and 1.38 WHIP. Bauer also struck out 143 batters in 153 innings.
2015: Went 11-12 with a 4.55 ERA and 1.31 WHIP over 176 innings. Bauer struck out 170 batters but walked 4.04 per nine innings.
SKILLS BREAKDOWN
Bauer misses bats. Let’s start there.
Bauer owns an 8.47 strikeout per nine mark for his career. Amongst hurlers who have thrown 300-innings the last two seasons his 8.56 K/9 mark is 22nd best in the game. That may not be as high as some folks hoped in terms of his overall K-rate, but it’s still a strong mark.
Surprisingly, given his stuff and K-rate, Bauer owns a mere 9.0 percent swinging strike rate for his career. That’s a league average mark. Wish it was higher. That likely means we aren’t going to see any growth in this category from Bauer.
Bauer walks batters. Always has. Just his thing. Let’s break it down.
Bauer has a 58.1 percent first strike rate for his career.
There were 67 men, who threw 162 innings last season, that bettered that mark. That’s not good Mr. Bauer.
Batters swing at 29.8 percent of the pitches that Bauer throws outside the strike zone for his career.
There were 60 qualifying pitchers who bettered that mark in 2015.
Bauer throws 43.5 percent of his pitches inside the “strike zone.”
Sixty pitchers bettered that mark in 2015.
All of this plays into the fact that Bauer walks too many batters. Let’s get directly into those numbers.
Bauer walked 4.04 batters per nine innings last season.
No pitcher in baseball who threw 162 innings last season was worse.
Bauer has walked 4.17 batters per nine innings for his career.
Since 2012, minimum 350 innings pitched, only Lucas Harrell (4.38) and Ubaldo Jimenez (4.31) are worse.
He doesn’t throw enough strikes, and that is going to hold him back. It’s the prime reason that he owns a 1.38 career WHIP, worse than the league average by the way. There’s not much hope that the number will go down substantially.
Bauer allows a 41 percent fly ball rate. The league average is 34 percent. That means Bauer is allowing batted balls to be hit skyward a lot. The result is a 0.92 GB/FB ratio, well below the league average of 1.10. Consequently, Bauer, even with a league average type of HR/FB ratio (10.6 percent), is bound to be taken deep a lot. He has been. In his career he’s allowed 44 homers in 65 outings leading to a 1.09 HR/9 mark. Not a great mark.
Bauer has permitted a 21.7 percent line drive rate, above the league average.
Bauer has a .290 BABIP for his career. That’s a league average number as well.
Let’s talk about his pitches.
Bauer has thrown his 4-seam fastball on 46.9 percent of his career pitches according to PITCHf/x data. Makes sense given his talents. At the same time, the results when he throws that pith are poor to say the least. In the 572 at-bats that have ended on a 4-seam fastball in Bauer’s career, the men swinging the lumber have hit .285 with a .488 SLG. They have also socked 26 homers with 34 doubles. For some context that means all batters ha has faced, when he’s throwing the 4-seamer, have hit like Kendrys Morales did last season (.290-22-106 with a .485 SLG and 41 doubles).
When he throws his cutter batters are hitting .314 (51 ABs).
They are hitting .309 with a .556 SLG against the changeup (90 ABs).
Bauer should be careful throwing those pitches.
However, his curveball gets great results. He’s ended 276 at-bats on the pitch and has allowed just four homers while limiting batters to a .123 batting average and .199 SLG. He’s also, get this, struck out 159 of those 276 leading to a 57.6 percent strikeout rate on that pitch. That’s sick.
Don’t forget to pick up your copy of the 2016 MLB Draft Guide which includes more than 600 Players ranked, auction values, rookie reports, hitting and pitching targets as well 30 proven strategies from the experts to help you win in the coming season. 
OUTLOOK
I can’t keep from thinking that Bauer is the new Ubaldo Jimenez. When he’s locked in he kills it. Unfortunately, those times don’t occur often enough, at least not to the point where you can trust Bauer to make 30+ starts for you without some big time level of concern. The stuff is there. The consistency gene though… he doesn’t seem to have that.
10-team Mixed: You can try to guess when the “run” of success will start but Bauer is probably best left on waivers in this format and added only when there’s a need.
12-team Mixed: Make him your last starter and hope, against hope, that he can somehow reign in the walks. If he could drop a half batter off his career rate in the walk column, like he did in 2014, that would certainly help his outlook. At the same time, he has the look of a guy that you get just to the point of loving, only to have him get bombed out of his shoes the next time he takes the hill. You can add him for the punchouts but you might have to pay a high price in so doing.
15-team Mixed: I’m willing to give Bauer a look here, but the leash isn’t long. There will be plenty of options who emerge early in the season, and if Bauer starts out slowly you shouldn’t feel too much trepidation in dropping the big armed, but erratic Bauer to open up a roster spot.
AL-Only: His strikeouts will be borderline elite in this format. His ratios? He will be slightly lucky to match the league average in both categories. You can only roster Bauer in this setup if you do a good job of surrounding him with hurlers that are strong plays in ERA and WHIP.
To see where Bauer ranks take a look at our 2016 Rankings that are part of the MLB Draft Guide.
Ray Flowers can be heard Monday through Friday, 7 PM EDT and Friday on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 6 PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).
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