Trevor Bauer to the Dodgers - Fantasy Impact

The biggest domino in this year's free agent market has finally toppled, as Trevor Bauer is taking his talents to Los Angeles for the next three years with the Dodgers. It'll be a return to familiar territory for the reigning NL Cy Young winner, as he returns not only to where he grew up but he will also be pitching just 20 miles away from where he used to play as a starter at UCLA.

He's coming off the best season of his career, but there is the question as to whether or not he can replicate those numbers in LA. Over the last four years Bauer has put up his two best single-season performances, but in the other two years of that span his performances fell much closer to his career averages. Considering the fact Bauer is currently the fourth pitcher coming off draft boards with an ADP of 16, managers are going to want to make sure that he will be worth that draft capital this season.

There's no question that Bauer will make an impact in fantasy one way or another, it's just a matter of whether managers will be happy with where they drafted him or if they will be wishing they had left him on the board.

A Tale of Two Trevors

Before we go any further we have to agree that we should take Bauer's 2020 campaign with a grain of salt. Yes, that fact applies to everyone from last year given all the weird quirks that occurred, but with Bauer in particular he probably couldn't have had a much easier schedule if he tried. These were his opponents over his 11 starts in 2020:

Tigers, Tigers, Brewers, Royals, Brewers, Cubs, Pirates, Cubs, Pirates, White Sox, Brewers

Five of these six teams ranked in the bottom-11 in the league in runs scored per game (White Sox were the exception). All six of these teams had strikeout rates over 24 percent, and the Tigers, Cubs and Brewers accounted for three of the four highest team strikeout rates in the majors. Now this isn't to say that Bauer couldn't have had a great year without all the COVID changes that occurred, but it sure helps his stat line when he gets to beat up on below-.500 teams in eight of his 11 starts.

OK, Bauer likely had his numbers inflated from a soft schedule, but he still had to pitch well against them. Bauer allowed only one run in two starts against the Tigers while Luis Castillo was tagged for five runs in one start against Detroit. Good pitchers still need to show up against bad teams, so maybe Bauer's 2020 campaign isn't a complete fluke. But even if we don't completely write off 2020 as a mirage, there's still the fact that Bauer has not shown much consistency over the last couple years:

The only thing that has really been consistent for Bauer over the last four years is his high-end strikeout rate. And that is a more recent development for Bauer as he previously owned a 21.4 percent strikeout rate over the first five seasons of his career. The increased strikeout rate can likely be explained away as a result of an increased usage of his slider and cutter, as they have gone from being among the least used pitches in his arsenal in 2016 to his second and third-most used pitches in 2020.

So the strikeouts seem legitimate, but what about the rest of the inconsistencies in his year-to-year numbers? It's possible that that could be a result of simply dealing with an increased workload over a full season. Check out his career splits between the first half of the season and the second half:

As you can see, Bauer's numbers take a hit in the second half of the season throughout his career. With a shortened season last year, Bauer didn't have to deal with a second-half drop off. And then in 2018 — what had been the best season of his career prior to last year — Bauer missed over a month in late-August and early-September with a stress fracture in his leg. Granted, he still ended up with a nearly identical number of innings pitched from the season before (176.1 IP vs 175.1 IP), but given the fact that he was on pace to pitch over 200 innings before the injury and that his numbers took a dip across the board when he threw a career-high 213 innings in 2019, it's possible that his final numbers in 2018 could have been somewhat worse than where they ended up. Now all this doesn't necessarily mean that Bauer cannot deal with a high workload, but it is something that managers should take into consideration heading into the draft.

Alright enough about the past — what should managers expect from Bauer in 2021?

2021 Outlook

First and foremost, Bauer will be facing a tougher division for the next three years. Last year Dodgers divisional opponents hit .255 with a 22.1 percent strikeout rate and averaged 4.87 runs per game. Reds divisional opponents on the other hand hit .202 with a 25.1 percent strikeout rate and averaged 4.08 runs per game. He'll be facing tougher competition now even as some of his metrics are suggesting regression in his future.

One big indicator that his ERA could be taking a hit next year is his absurd 90.9 percent left-on-base rate he posted in 2020. It was the second-highest in the majors behind only Shane Bieber, and it was over 11 percent higher than his previous career-high and over 17 percent higher than his career average. High strikeout pitchers tend to have higher LOB percentages, but given how much of an outlier Bauer's 2020 rate is compared to his career along with his relatively consistent high strikeout rate over the last four years it seems likely that number will regress this year in Los Angeles and his ERA will be on the rise as a result.

Batters have also started making more solid contact over the past three years off Bauer, as he has become far more of a flyball pitcher than he had previously displayed. Here's a look at some of his Statcast numbers and batted ball rates since 2018:

So when batters are making contact, they're making harder contact and they're getting more loft on the ball. This rising trend hasn't hurt him much in the relatively weaker AL and NL Central divisions, but it could cause some problems pitching in the NL West.

What does all this mean? Basically managers should expect Bauer to regress considerably from last year's numbers. The strikeouts shouldn't be a problem — managers should expect him to be good for around 200 this year — and pitching for the Dodgers he should be in line for around 13 wins without too much trouble. The ERA though is going to take a hit, and managers should conservatively plan for Bauer to finish with an ERA likely around 3.70 with the potential to be as low as around 2.70.

Even with all that doom and gloom though, Bauer should still be one of the top 15pitchers drafted in most formats. Just maybe not the No. 4 pitcher going in the middle of the second round. The next three pitchers coming off the board in drafts right now are Yu Darvish (ADP 18), Lucas Giolito (ADP 19), and Walker Buehler (ADP 20). Managers should consider targeting any of those three over Bauer in virtually any format, and look to target Bauer (assuming he's still available then) closer to pick 25.

More Fantasy Baseball Analysis