Trevor Bauer reinstated after sexual abuse suspension: Will the Dodgers keep him or release him?

An independent arbitrator reduced Trevor Bauer’s original 324-game ban for breaching the domestic violence code of Major League Baseball to 194 games. The adjudicator also reinstated Bauer.

The arbitrator’s decision was communicated to Bauer’s legal representatives and his employer, the Los Angeles Dodgers, on Thursday afternoon. This ended a grievance process that had been going on for seven months and provided some clarity to a drama that had been playing out over the past year and a half.

Bauer has already served 144 games of the punishment. Still, the arbitrator Martin Scheinman awarded him credit for his time on Major League Baseball’s restricted list in the second part of the 2021 season. As a result, Bauer’s compensation for the first fifty games of the 2023 season will be deducted, but he will be formally reinstated on Friday.

After that, the Dodgers will have 14 days, until January 6th, to decide whether to include him on their 40-man roster or dismiss him.

The Dodgers were caught off guard

According to ESPN, a person close to the issue said the Dodgers were taken aback by the judgment, having learned the findings approximately half an hour before MLB published a statement.

For their part, the Dodgers issued merely a brief statement. “We have just been informed of the arbitrator’s ruling and will comment as soon as practical.”

Despite a decrease, Bauer’s ban is still the longest in the seven-a-half years of existence of a domestic violence policy that was mutually agreed upon by MLB and the MLB Players Association in 2015.

What is next for Buer and the Dodgers

While playing for the Cincinnati Reds, Bauer established a case for a Cy Young Award in 2018, and he ended up winning the award in 2020, despite playing in a season cut short by COVID-19. There was widespread condemnation of Bauer’s history of bullying on social media, but the Dodgers signed him that winter, outbidding the New York Mets for his services.

Bauer was the team’s ace pitcher with a 2.59 ERA in 17 starts for Los Angeles in the first half of the 2021 season. Ever since then, he hasn’t been on the mound. So who knows whether he’ll ever get another shot at pitching in the big leagues.