Trevor Andrew Bauer (born January 17, 1991) is an American professional baseball pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds of Major League Baseball (MLB). He has previously pitched in MLB for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Cleveland Indians.

Bauer played college baseball for the UCLA Bruins, winning the Golden Spikes Award in 2011. He was the third overall selection of the 2011 Major League Baseball draft by the Diamondbacks, and made his MLB debut in 2012.^[1] The Diamondbacks traded him to the Indians during the 2012–13 offseason. The Indians traded him to the Reds before the trade deadline in the 2019 season.

Bauer attended Hart High School in Santa Clarita, California. He then attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he played for the UCLA Bruins baseball team. In his freshman year at UCLA, Bauer recorded a 9–3 win-loss record with a 2.99 earned run average (ERA), recording 92 strikeouts in 105 1⁄3 innings pitched.

Bauer was a member of the USA 2007 Baseball Collegiate National Team. He was 1–1 with a 4.67 ERA in five games (three starts), with 24 strikeouts and seven walks in 17 1⁄3 innings. In 2009, he was named to the Baseball America freshman All-America team.^[2]

During the 2010 season, the Bruins had the best record (51–17) in school history and were the second best team in the country. The Bruins played in the 2010 College World Series and were defeated by South Carolina in the NCAA Championship Series.^[3] In 2010, he was a finalist for the Golden Spikes Award, presented annually to the top amateur baseball player in the country by USA Baseball.^[4]

In 2011, Bauer was named the Pac-12 Conference Pitcher of the Year and to the All-Pac-12 First Team. He was also the Collegiate Baseball Newspaper's National Player of the Year. He was named the District IX Player of the Year by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) and College Player of the Year by Baseball America.^[5]

In his junior year, Bauer went 13–2 with a 1.25 ERA in 16 starts. He set a nation-leading and Pac-12 single-season record of 203 strikeouts. He finished the season with nine consecutive complete games and established new records at UCLA, including 460 career strikeouts, 34 wins, and 373 1⁄3 pitched innings. Bauer won the Golden Spikes Award,^[6] and the National Pitcher of the Year Award.^[7]

Bauer was selected third overall in the 2011 Major League Baseball Draft by the Arizona Diamondbacks.^[9] On July 25, he signed a major league contract with the Diamondbacks, being added to the 40-man roster.^[10] He made his professional debut with the Class-A Advanced Visalia Rawhide.^[11] In the game, Bauer pitched two innings, allowing one hit, striking out three batters and walked one.^[8] He made three starts in total in Visalia, pitching in nine innings and allowing three runs on seven hits. However, he struck out 17 of the 39 batters he faced,^[12] earning himself a promotion to the Double-A Mobile BayBears on August 13.^[13]

In four starts at AA Mobile, Bauer pitched 16 2⁄3 innings, striking out 26, but walked eight batters and had a 7.56 ERA.^[12] He received his first win as a professional August 20, 2011 in a 13–6 victory over the Jacksonville Suns. He was named to appear in the 2012 All-Star Futures Game.^[15]

Bauer made his major league debut for the Diamondbacks on June 28, 2012, against the Atlanta Braves. He went 4 innings, struck out 3 batters, and gave up 5 hits in a no-decision. He got his first major league win on July 8, against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

On July 18, 2012, Bauer was optioned back to Triple-A Reno Aces after posting a 1–2 record and a 6.06 ERA. The organization rested Bauer for two weeks to keep his arm lively, and he responded by posting six shutout innings in his first start back on August 6.^[undefined]

On December 11, 2012 he was traded to the Cleveland Indians in a three-team deal. Bauer went to Cleveland with Matt Albers and Bryan Shaw in exchange for Didi Gregorius, Tony Sipp and Lars Anderson. The Indians also acquired Drew Stubbs in a deal that sent Shin-Soo Choo and Jason Donald to Cincinnati to complete the deal.^[17]

In 2013 for the Indians he was 1-2 with a 5.29 ERA.^[18] In 2014 for the Indians he was 5-8 with a 4.18 ERA.^[18]

On June 16, 2015, Bauer got his first hit as a batter against the Chicago Cubs' pitcher Jake Arrieta in the top of the 5th inning at Wrigley Field.^[19][20] During the July 3, 2015, game against the Pittsburgh Pirates' pitcher Antonio Bastardo, Bauer imitated his teammates batting stances (Jason Kipnis, Mike Avilés, and Ryan Raburn) in the top of the 7th inning and drew a walk.^[21][22] In 2015 he was 11-12 and had the highest rate of bases on balls per 9 innings pitched in the majors (4.04).^[23] He led the American League in walks, with 79,^[24] and his 12 losses were 7th-most in the AL.

On October 17, 2016, Bauer left Game 3 of the 2016 American League Championship Series due to having cut his pinky on a propeller of his drone on October 14, 2016. In the subsequent World Series against the Chicago Cubs, Bauer was the losing pitcher in both of his starts, which came in Games 2 and 5. The Cubs would win the Series in seven games.

On October 5, 2017, in Game 1 of the American League Division Series, Bauer pitched 51⁄3 innings against the New York Yankees without giving up a hit, setting a new Indians postseason record.^[25]

On April 4, 2019, Bauer pitched seven no-hit innings against the Toronto Blue Jays, recording eight strikeouts, six walks and one hit by pitch.^[26]

On July 28, 2019, after allowing 7 earned runs to the Kansas City Royals Bauer threw a baseball out of frustration from the pitchers mound over the centerfield wall after seeing his manager Terry Francona walk out from the dugout to take him out of the game.

Bauer later apologized for the incident, calling his actions both "childish, unprofessional".^[27]

On July 31, 2019, the Indians traded Bauer to the Cincinnati Reds in a three-team trade that also included the San Diego Padres. The Indians acquired Franmil Reyes, Logan Allen, and minor leaguer Victor Nova from the Padres and Yasiel Puig and minor league pitcher Scott Moss from the Reds, while the Padres acquired minor leaguer Taylor Trammell from the Reds.^[28] Bauer wore "J Ochart" on his Players' Weekend Jersey after losing a bet in the offseasonwith Jason Ochart, a hitting instructor at Driveline Baseball and hitting coach with the Philadelphia Phillies.^[29]

Bauer said he has patterned his overhand delivery after his role model, two-time Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum.^[30] He said he has studied so much video of Lincecum that he can by memory play back frame by frame Lincecum striking out 18 UCLA batters while he was a junior at the University of Washington. "He's been a huge influence on my career and my delivery," Bauer said.

Bauer features an eclectic and large variety of pitches.

According to an article in Sports Illustrated, he has experimented with up to 19 different pitches.^[1] He explained in an interview why he features so many pitches:

According to Bauer, he throws the following pitches:^[31]

Bauer has gained some celebrity for his unusual workout and warmup regimen,^[34][35] which includes long toss at distances of up to 400 feet. Bauer is also known to study his pitching mechanics using high-speed cameras.^[1] He has posted a series of videos on YouTube showing his pitching mechanics and repertoire in slow motion.^[36]

Starting in the 2018 season, Bauer launched his 69 Days of Giving campaign.

In 2018, Bauer donated $400 to 68 different charities and capped it off by donating almost $70,000 to Max S. Hayes High School. The school is located minutes away from Progressive Field where the Indians play and focuses on technical and trade education. In 2019, Bauer decided to take his giving to donate $10/strikeout to 69 different charities picked by his Twitter followers.

Outside of baseball, Bauer collects drones.

Bauer sliced and injured his right pinky finger while repairing a drone in October 2016, a couple of days before he had a scheduled post-season start, and he needed ten stitches to close the wound caused by one of the drone's propellers.^[37][38][39] His injury forced his pitching start in the 2016 American League Championship Series to be pushed back from Game 2 to Game 3. Bauer had to leave after the first inning of Game 3, however, when the stitches used to treat his cut opened up.^[40]

Bauer describes himself as a "socially liberal free-market capitalist".^[41] Although at first he claimed to have voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 United States presidential election,^[42] he later said he did not vote at all, but that he thought Trump would "shake up the system".^[41] He has criticized American media for a liberal bias in its coverage of the president.^[43]

Bauer has voiced his support of conspiracy theories such as climate change denial and the birther movement associated with Barack Obama.^[43] On May 22, 2018, Bauer was accused of carving BD 911 into the pitcher's mound, a reference to a conspiracy theory that indicated "Bush did 9/11". Bauer later wrote on Twitter that he wrote BD 91.1 and that the numbers and letters were meaningful to him personally and completely unrelated to the September 11 attacks.^[44]

Bauer has become known for his active Twitter feed, where he has argued about politics with other users, joked that one should kill himself, bragged about how smart he is, and tweeted that "690%" of his teammates were fellow Trump supporters.

He said that the MLB Commissioner's Office tried to censor him for sharing his opinions.^[45]