The Time Has Come For Trevor Bauer

The Cleveland Indians rotation has made them one of the most talked about teams in the league, and rightly so. The big one-two-three punch of Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, and Danny Salazar, all of which are young and have their best days ahead of them, is enough to put almost any team into contention. However, I would like to focus on the guy who has begun to fall through the cracks, Trevor Bauer. At age 25, the former top prospect has slightly disappointed thus far, but I believe he is set up for a breakout season in 2016.Last season was the year people expected a breakout from Bauer, and after it didn't happen and we saw Carrasco and Salazar pitch so well, Bauer has now shifted to the role of the dark horse.  The inconsistencies, the control issues, and sometimes his personality, have really held him back; but this is the year he can overcome all of that. In 2015, Bauer made a career high 30 starts, posting a record of 11-12, and a bad second half resulted in an ERA of 4.55. Bauer had a roller coaster of a season in 2015, that included a demotion to the bullpen in September, but he ended it on a high note going 7 innings of two-hit one run ball in his final start. Here is a brief look at how his inconsistencies haunted him all year long:
April - 2-0, 1.80 ERA, 4 starts
May - 2-2, 3.72, 6 starts
June - 2-3, 6.26, 5 starts
July -2-3, 4.59, 5 starts
August - 2-2, 5.01, 6 starts
September - 1-2, 9.49, 4 starts, 1 bullpen appearance
October - 0-0, 1.29, 1 start
Pre-Allstar - 8-5, 3.76, 17 starts
Post-Allstar - 3-7, 5.73, 13 starts, 1 bullpen appearance
Bauer had this to say about his season as a whole: "I look at it as my first full season in the big leagues, so it was better than the year before. Won a lot of games, that was more than double what I've won in prior years, threw a lot of innings, performed well, I thought so." He then went on to say "Overall when you look at it, and you separate yourself from it for a little while, you could make an argument either way with the statistics, but I chose to look at it as the best year of my career." The separation he was referring to, was the mental break from baseball that Bauer took this offseason. While he still put in eight hours a day of baseball workouts and training, Bauer took a little extra time off this Winter to clear his head, in order to come back more focused and with less pressure in 2016. Bauer projects as the number four starter in a stacked Cleveland rotation, but he may emerge as much more than that in the Summer months ahead. Bauer has an absolutely ridiculous and sick pitch arsenal, and learning to control it consistently will be the biggest key towards the consistency he needs. Bauer ranked 3rd in all of baseball for walks allowed last season, and when you do that you really swing the door for inconsistency wide open. Outside of the walks, Bauer did just fine. Don't believe it? Bauer was 19th in all of baseball for lowest opponent batting average, that's ahead of names like Chris Sale, Garret Richards, Michael Wacha, Cole Hamels, and Felix Hernandez just to name a few. So if Bauer can reduce the walks, he has all the tools to become a top of the rotation starter. I believe that the offseason break, and being the number four starter will take a huge amount of pressure off of his shoulders, and 2016 will finally be the year we will see the beast that is Trevor Bauer.