Rebuilding After Controversy | Trevor Bauer's Discipline & Resilience Blueprint

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0:42Now you can get 20 % off all IQ Bar products plus free shipping when you visit IQBar.com and enter promo code BAR20. To get 20 % off plus free shipping, go to IQBar.com and enter promo code BAR20. That's IQBar.com, promo code BAR20. That was in 2012, July. And for the rest of my time, I've been, quote, bad teammate because of Montero's quotes about me. This is the thing that I love about the game and the thing that I hate about the fucking game is if you're a player and you go against the norms, then you're cooked. I mean, Pete Rose had to die before they let him into the Hall of Fame. A pitcher obsessed with perfection.

1:18A 2020 Cy Young winner, the first player in Cincinnati Reds history to earn the honor. More than 1 ,400 major league strikeouts. Over 10 professional seasons. Today, we're sitting down with Trevor Bauer. It doesn't matter what you put me. I hate losing. I think that's what's really driven me in my baseball career. Everyone else will quit and I will be the best because I'm the only one left standing. 2020, Cy Young. You know, shortly after that, you become the highest paid LA Dodger. And then 17 starts. Gone. At what point when that happened, did you realize that you're like, shit, this is not going away.

1:50This is a problem.

1:58Imagine building yourself into the best pitcher in baseball, and then one day it's taken all away from you. See, my guest today isn't supposed to be where he's at right now. Let me take you back to North Hollywood as a child, spending time after school, throwing a tennis ball against a chain-link fence on a tennis court just to get better, and often ridiculed by his peers for having too much focus on one sport, which is baseball. See, this guy right here has done some amazing things in his career. And I would like to say that baseball has not been completely good to him, and a lot of times unjust.

2:34But here's the thing. His junior year in high school, he left early and he went to UCLA shortly after to break every single pitching record that UCLA had. In 2011, he was the third pick in the MLB draft, only to make the big league club 12 months later. I have with me today, in my opinion, one of the goats that would stand six feet, six inches away from the catcher and the hitter in Major League stadiums. I have with me today, Trevor Bauer. Welcome to the show, man. Thanks, man. Good to be here. You did a lot of very flattering things there. I appreciate it. I mean, look, bro. You know, it's the truth.

3:12It's your story, right? It's one of those things where you've done so many things in this sport and digging all the way back into your background, kind of that's where I want to start, man, because I too would sit there against a wall with a tennis ball. People bullied me, made fun of me. I was a dork. I didn't know shit. Couldn't get any girls. All he does is play baseball. And my question to you, because I know what my answer was, in those moments where you're throwing the ball against the chain link fence, were you running towards something or you running away from something i think i was always running towards something um you know my dad was an engineer and he taught me the like engineering mindset the framework to get better at something to develop something it's like where are you where do you want to be design a process to get from a to b and then just like cycle through it as many times as possible learn along the way um so it's like and he taught me to plan for long term it It wasn't like, how did you do today?

4:08It was, what do you want to be in 10 years? I love that. And so I looked at it. My goal was always just to make the high school team. And not make it by just being on the team, but actually be on the field. Be a contributor. So when I was 8 or 10, it was just like, yeah, high school team, high school team. But the tournament, I get frustrated about the tournament that weekend. But it was like, okay, how do I get better? So it was never like a final thing. It's not like I failed at this tournament and then I was just done. so I always like when I was up at the park at 11 o 'clock at night I'd be like yeah I'm going towards high school team high school team and then once I made that I was like okay I want to go to college and at the time I was a huge Tim Lenscombe fan and I was like okay his Pac-12 Strider Pac-10 doesn't neither of them even exist anymore which is crazy but uh conference yeah yeah um but it was like oh he had 491 strikeouts in his college career like I'm gonna go break that so i would set this kind of like long-term goal for myself and then just always be running towards that and then baseball just kind of became an escape because it was something i could kind of control or like i could control how much i was working how much i was trying to get better how much i was studying whatever else and i also just really enjoyed it like that's the thing that i would get up and want to go do for whatever reason some people have like i want to go do business some people want to go and make music i wanted to go play baseball all the time couldn't get enough of it so you're always running towards something in the future i'm actually very bad at celebrating the past and the present like the night that i won the cy young i had wanted to say young for 10 years after i won the golden spikes in college i was like cy young and i worked for it for 10 years and the night i won it i went to dinner with all my friends and family to celebrate it and the entire time at dinner i was like this is pretty cool but how do i get another one because anyone can win one yeah you know and you know the reality is is not everybody can win one no that's just like what i have to kind of like tell myself to try to go to like the next level like that's my guardrail i guess against complacency in a way you and i are a lot alike dude yeah like i'm listening to you and i'm thinking holy shit like that's sean french because i have a hard time really celebrating where I'm at.

6:23And I have to get quiet sometimes. I was walking to the subway today. I took a picture of the New York City skyline. I'm like, man, this shit started in my car. Then my den. Now I'm in New York, and I'm about to hop on a train to go see Trevor. It's important in those moments to sit there. They're like, okay, this is cool. But at the same time, five minutes later, I'm on my phone searching for ways that I can get to that next level. And so I can relate to everything you're saying. It's like if you ask day one, determine society, what would life be like if you had 100 ,000 followers, if you were going across the nation to interview these types of people, if you were like day one person, like that's exactly what I want.

7:16like if you start off on day one like if i could just get to you know five thousand dollars a month it would like completely change my life and then it might take you three years to do it or however long it takes and then you get there and it's like oh but i'm not at 10 or i'm not at 50 or i'm not at whatever but you don't realize that like day one you would have sacrificed everything just to have the current spot that you're at dude like just to have this yeah you see what i'm saying like just to be able to come to New York four times in the last five months to record with amazing people. Yeah.

7:50Like, this would have been the end game. Yeah. Because the beginning was, I just want to talk to local people. Right. And find out what the recipe for success was. Like, how did they go about it? Yeah. You know, what can I share with the audience that, to me, I didn't even know what it was going to look like. So, but I can appreciate that, man, because it's hard to go back and look and celebrate. And it's hard to, you know, celebrate in the current, especially when you're not where you want to be. You know, and that's the thing, man. But it's also a baseball thing. And I think it's very proprietary to pitchers and catchers because we're never shutting off.

8:22Yeah. Well, you can't. You can't. You lose. As soon as you shut off, you lose. Mm-hmm. Quick. Very quick. Yeah. Because, dude, you're behind the dish, and if you start thinking about something different other than what Trevor's about to throw, that ball's going to go off your mask. Yeah. And, you know, 12 ,000 people in a college stadium. Yeah. Right. Exactly. exactly yeah i mean that would be that would be you losing focus though well as a but as a group though like if you're if you're calling the game as a catcher and you're like spacing out and you just put down a finger yeah you don't notice the guys step back in the box or he was late on this last pitch or the thing that he muttered under his breath or you don't notice that your pitcher today like the last two innings just hasn't had the feel for this pitch or whatever it is like if you're the one you know quarterbacking that calling those pitches and you blank for a second and oh yep now we lose as a team you know it's like it's wild man baseball's a funny game dude um you know some of the things that you mentioned that you know a lot of flattering things that i said in the intro i forgot a lot right intros are tough sometimes you remember a lot more than i do honestly but i mean dude like but think about it you know you know 2020 cy young you know and then you know shortly after that you become the highest paid la dodger yeah like literally in the history a pitcher in the history at 102 million yeah and then 17 starts yeah gone yep pretty shitty very shitty yeah right like at what point when that happened did you did you realize and you're like shit this is not going away this is a problem um i mean when it came out like i was it was like very uh the whole like i knew a lot about it like before that like we'd been going back and forth for a month and a half or a month or whatever it was like behind the scenes and like obviously there's nothing there and you know i'm talking to the investigators or whatever else it's like okay this isn't going to be a thing there's nothing here d wouldn't even press charges yeah and like we knew it was going to be dropped and then they had to inform her side that they weren't gonna press charges and then all of a sudden a couple hours later tmz article and then it's like oh great this is the route that we're gonna go i guess just make up a bunch of stuff and lie and whatever so yeah then originally like the first two days mb put me on they're just like you gotta skip one start like that sucks i was gonna pitch july 4th in dc oh man it's a national it's gonna be sick i had these like great cleats and i was like super excited i love my country and you know um so like you gotta skip a start and then it was like you gotta skip another start and i was like we're gonna put you on like permanent admin leave while this calms down yeah they originally hit you like with 300 and something game suspension yeah yeah they uh the whole the whole way it like played out was like skip a start skip a couple starts put you on admin leave you'll be back in a month oh we're gonna wait until this like dvro court thing goes on what people don't realize about that is like when you go to DVRO court basically 100 % of those things are granted because there's no like someone goes in oh I'm scared for this 100 % approval for a temporary not a full or permanent but temporary 100 % it's just like this temporary restraining order and it's like oh yeah grant it and we go in there and she can't even get a temporary one and when that happened I was like oh I'll just be back playing tomorrow but then there was so much media noise and like the it's just like the we knew it was going to be dropped the entire time and then it's like oh well we have to like optically show that we're investigating this and like we have to dot all our i's and cross all our t's and then that took us the six weeks to the dvro and then after that we're like okay so now she can't get a temporary restraining order you guys have all the information you've talked to everybody you've seen three or four days in court with evidence like you understand that we all know what's going on here like oh yeah okay it's going to be dropped and it's like a week goes by a month goes by like three weeks after that or two weeks something it was in early september like jeff passen had an article saying that i was going to be suspended for two years and it's like oh you're an mlb insider like what do you know that i don't know how do you know that and then you flash forward two weeks after the season starts so i have two years left on my contract at this point right like it was a three-year contract it was going to be dropped in the end of my first year then it pushed to the off season and then we're just sitting there for six months like hey can we get an update like where does this stand oh it's you know in final whatever blah blah like delay delay delay delay delay passing comes out with the article going to be suspended two years delay delay delay delay spring training comes around oh we're still you The MLB investigation can't proceed because there's still an open criminal investigation or whatever is going on, which there wasn't, but it was just like nothing was happening.

13:26This thing is sitting on the DA's desk waiting to be just signed off. Everything is done. It's been done for months. Nothing's happening. Nothing's happening. Spring training goes by. First two weeks of the season go by. Oh, all of a sudden, now it gets signed off on. Now it's signed off, so now MLB can start the investigation. Oh, now they're going to suspend me for two years. Well, why two years at that point when I was two weeks shy of two years left on my contract? Oh, because now when I'm a free agent, I'll still have a suspension and it's a ban for life. And it's like a de facto ban for life.

13:59So then... Is it really? That's what it was the entire time. Like, why would you wait? Like, why does Jeff Passan know before any MLB investigation has been done that I'm going to be suspended for two years? then why do you wait till two weeks into the season three weeks into the season then suspend me for two years so it's just two or three months two or three weeks past when my contract would end you know what's interesting to me is the timeline right so when we look at this you know 324 whatever whatever whatever the number was like that's a little extreme bumped it down to 194 or whatever it was and then immediately they said okay we're gonna reinstate you but you're gonna take a 50 game hit on your pay.

14:41Yeah. And then 17 days later, the Dodgers released you. Yeah. Yeah, because the arbitrator is like, yeah, you're cleared to play immediately. Like, I can't give you back the time that you lost. It's like, you can't go back in time and play. But like, you're cleared to play immediately. Wiped it. It's like, yeah, you're back. And then like, oh, well, now what? He's going to be back. So, and then the Dodgers released you. we have this meeting talk to um high ups in the organization like really high ups in the organization yeah we want to bring you back we want to do this that and the other the day before they release me right it's like we leave this meeting feeling pretty good about it and then like we got to get final approval like the very top person the next day it's like complete 180 nope see uh get rid of you blah blah blah and then that's the same pattern that we've seen for the last five years.

15:31It's actually amazing to me. And, dude, the thing that impresses me most is most people will go away. Most people would, you know, crawl into their hole, maybe get addicted to drugs, maybe rob a house, like most former athletes do, right? They're gone. Most former athletes, Rob. You heard it here first. You heard it here first. 100 % of former athletes rob a house. I didn't say 100%, but you know what I'm saying. saying, do they go down the wrong road? You know, you go to Mexico post a perfect record of 10 and O and then you, then you go to Japan. Yeah. Right. Oh boy. As we all know, starting something new isn't just hard.

16:15It's absolutely terrifying. So much work goes into the thing that you're not entirely sure will work out. And it can be hard to make that leap of faith. Trust me. I know this feeling. And you may be thinking like I did. What if no one buys my products? Don't worry. Shopify is on your side to help. Get started with your own design studio. With hundreds of ready-to-use templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand style. So you can get the word out, like you have a full marketing team behind you. Easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are scrolling or even strolling.

16:49Best yet, Shopify is your commerce expert with world-class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping down to processing returns and beyond it's time to turn those what-ifs into with shopify today sign up for your one dollar per month trial at shopify.com slash tds go to shopify.com slash tds that's shopify.com slash tds um no you went to japan first and first and and did well went to Mexico, perfect record, and then back to Japan. And now you're here in Long Island, mic'd up for every fucking pitch, dude. You haven't stopped. You haven't stopped competing. And you haven't stopped sticking to your story, your truth, and what is actual truth.

17:39And man, there's a big community out there that is watching your every move right now, dumbfounded. And I'm, including me, dumbfounded at the fact that there's this invisible black ball or ban for life. And I hope one day, very, very soon, it's over. Because there's a generation, man, that's missing out on your talent. My son knew who you were when he's 12. Yeah. And that made me a proud dad. Power of social media. That made me a proud dad. Well, he ain't on that shit. He ain't on that. But I talk about people. You know what I mean? He finally... Do you watch YouTube? No, he's not allowed. Nothing.

18:21Nothing. Good for you. Nothing. Doesn't have a screen. No. None of my kids. But, dude, you didn't stop, man. You're the epitome of determination. What about you? It just keeps going, dude. I think the – I forget who said it, but it's like the only way you lose is if you stop. I hate losing more than anything. I think that's what's really driven me in my baseball career is I just like – it doesn't matter what you put me. I hate losing. You put me in business, content. You put me in baseball field. you put me on a you know ping pong table like whatever it is like i'm very very competitive and um my whole life it's been like i'll lose the battle like i'll lose a game you know i'll get bullied i'll lose an interaction i'll whatever it is just like okay i i will just do this longer than you will that's gonna be my way of winning in the long run because when i'm 60 and i look back like you know i would have this thought when i was 15 years old like i'm 15 now like you guys are you know popular in high school and celebrating this or that or the other like when i'm 60 like you'll stop i won't that's how i'm going to beat you i will get two days and you'll do one so i'll just get better 50 quicker than you know like that's kind of been my edge because i'm not the most like physically talented naturally i'm not like you know i don't have this crazy like you know fastball or the i can't jump out of the building or whatever it is right like these kind of typical definitions of athleticism but like mentally i'll beat you mentally like i'll stack myself up against anyone mentally and like let me i'll figure this puzzle out and so i look at longevity and uh i guess determination as like that mental edge like i'm just willing to eat shit longer than the next guy and eventually if i do it long enough everyone else will quit and i will be the best because i'm the only one left standing do you think that's a baseball thing sports thing i think it is i think it's also like uh i i think it's also partially you know parenting um environment you know that you grew up in like parents kind of create the environment but there's also a certain like parents can't control like how the school environment is necessarily or like how you're social or like whatever right there's some nurture some nature and I think the I didn't have a great like school life so I'm not like the best socially it's taken me a long time to kind of learn social norms and I'm still not good at it I think you've done fine with me though I've done I'm better now okay I appreciate that but Kevin's like Kevin's like I don't know this guy's a prick man but like when I was younger like all I cared about was baseball and so like i had this kind of rough school like i was a nerd i still am a nerd like that's those are my people and so i would like love physics class i'd go sit in physics class and do math homework at lunch instead of play chess instead of like going and socializing in high school and like didn't fit in with the athletes because i was a nerd didn't fit in with the nerds because i was an athlete and i think that environment kind of like it was very it tested me a lot and i kind of really had early on i had to lock in on who i was and what was important to me and i remember this day i used to get up at like 5 a.m and go to the ymca before school three times a week and i'll go to the pool and i'd practice delivery and mechanics and whatever in the pool for an hour before i would go home you know shower and go to school and um i remember getting high i came home one day looked and you know took showers look in the mirror drying off and i was like gotta go to school this sucks i hate this place love the love the information but like socially just hate it and i was like why don't people like me and i just i i'm looking myself in the mirror i'm like i like what i see i'm intelligent i study hard i like treat people well dedicated i'm like decently good at baseball i have a lot going for me that i would value as a person like if i was looking to have a friend or like a girlfriend or whatever like these are the things that i would value in a person and i remember that day i just made the decision i was like well as long as i can look in the mirror at the end of the day and be proud of myself happy with the decisions that i've made like happy with the way that i've treated people and this and that and the other and like i'm just done caring what random person at school thinks or what random person online thinks or whatever and so that kind of gave me the confidence to just like now it didn't matter like if someone came and talked crap to me at school or whatever i didn't it didn't matter like and i it gave me the confidence to kind of like talk back in a way and defend myself stand up for myself and then that was when i was 17 i think over the next like 10 to 15 years probably like 10 to 13 years it kind of swung a little bit too far in that opposite direction where like there's times where i would fire back too much um but it's this kind of day in day out iterative process too at the end of the day i looked in the mirror okay am i happy with how i conducted myself today like oh like these 99 things this one thing i wasn't happy with let me change that and so i just kind of evolve over time so when you think about things that you would things how you would change how you did it maybe yeah yeah what what would be one of those things and not the fact that you wanted to change the outcome yeah just just the approach yeah there's so many things um i mean we could talk athletically we could talk like socially you could talk business well there's just there's so many because i do it in every walk of life like i'm you know how am i in relationships how am i in in the clubhouse how am i on the field how am i with my parents how like all this stuff um i think you know i i think one of the biggest things was um i tend to play things out in a public square like i don't i'm open i say stuff i'd like it is what it is with me like you're gonna see the good you're gonna see the bad like i'm just very i think that's kind of the you know when i decided i don't care what people think i think that's kind of that that's what you get right it's like this is who i am like it or love it hate it whatever yeah um but i think i certainly could have been more mature in how i handled disagreements with people like for example like the media like someone writes a bad article about me someone that doesn't know me gets a bunch of stuff wrong very negative article you can ignore it you can call it out on twitter you can put something if you do call it out on twitter you can be like hey f you or hey here's some things that i think you got wrong or whatever they're like a positive a negative way to handle it or you could like not do anything publicly but reach out to the guy like hey i just want to like chat like get to know each other never met i see you right wrote this thing like you're open to a conversation and all of those different ways of handling things have different potential outcomes right um and i think the the way i handled it was in the public square just fire back like oh you said some negative stuff about me well here's some negative stuff about you and like that's how you dictated the terms of this interaction and now like i'm going to fire back in the same way but like i'm going to beat you in this argument because i don't like losing and i'm and i'm very intelligent yeah and so you but well you said i'm not going to say that but um i just think that that's i think that that's uh caused a lot of problems long term okay because instead of the media being like oh this guy's not nice necessarily but like you know we have a decent relationship with this guy like we'll write the positives and the negatives we'll write a fair balanced thing like it's just all negative so a lot of that's my doing do you think part of that's the issue now like the writers and the media they didn't feel warm and fuzzy about you so yeah i mean that's why it was such a well a couple things combined like i because of the content because of the way i am on twitter like i draw attention and good bad indifferent like i just my name when people write about me gets more clicks than your generic mlb player other story um i'm very polarizing people either love me or hate me um i think in order to be like a really large brand you kind of end up that way you have to be for someone which means you have to be against other people yeah that's kind of the nature of it um so you have this like my name draws a lot of clicks i actively have attacked media members in the past so it's easy to like band together as the media and be like we're gonna go after this guy um and that kind of created this firestorm where the only reason i was ever like off the field was because there's too much media attention um and if you look at other people that have gotten to come back and play it's like they have no no one writes about them no one talks about them they don't say anything in the media it's just like small little thing no one even realized it just brushed away but because i am loud and generate a lot of attention like my name is always a story like i'm playing independent ball right now and like look at the story that it is like no other former player that's playing independent ball gets any attention or anything it's insane what you're doing here yeah you know and you know when you when you look at the social media content i love it i love watching you talk shit but also i feel like a lot of athletes that's that's what the game is and yeah i'm the only one to wear mic and to show what the game actually is and so people like oh he's such a dick or oh i love this guy but it's because it doesn't exist anywhere else yeah they don't know like a lot of times when you see a catcher and a hitter interact and they're like oh they're being chummy no no they're not hey man fuck you yeah like hey tell your guy to throw that week at shit no no fuck you you're you we're gonna buzz your tower you better be careful umpire one of my favorite interactions chris jimenez behind the plate it's in cleveland billy butler's at the plate and jimenez tries to frame a pitch and he's talking to the umpire says nothing to billy talking to the umpire where he got that where he got that billy's like hey it's a fucking ball stop talking to him jimenez gets up gets in butler's face they almost fight right there's they have to be separated yeah next pitch homer like 450 feet just like stares back at the catcher like sick but that's what the game is yeah there's a lot of that there's chirping non-stop guys like yelling whatever um and then after the game everyone will go have a beer together like go hang out everyone's cool but it's competition like between the white lines F you.

29:12Like, I want to win, which means you have to lose. And, like, you're not going to feel great about losing, but I don't want to be the one to lose. Yeah, I don't want to feel like shit. Yeah. It's funny because when you said after the game, it's over. Yeah. I remember when I was coaching high school, me and my buddy Mark Tagliari, we got into it. Like, literally toe-to-toe on the field, like, almost fought. Like, umpire almost threw us both out. Yeah. After the game, we're laughing about hugging. Like, no one even said sorry. We laugh about it today. Yeah. You know, we run into each other at the sauna at the gym.

29:44Hey, remember that time? Yeah. It's just people that are watching this don't understand what you're saying out loud is already being said out loud. You just can't hear these people. Right. But the other thing that I really love hearing is just how your mind works, how you're talking yourself to the next pitch or how you didn't like the pitch before I did this wrong. Let's see how this one goes. Yeah. All right. like it it's showing a process of of how you handle your business which i think is very important for people to see for sure because i've had so many people say like oh i've gotten into pitching or i've gotten into baseball because i watch your content i finally understand it like i thought they were just throwing it like i didn't realize all this stuff went into it and i think that's really important for the yes for the general fan base of baseball but specifically for the young players to like pick stuff up yeah my two goals in baseball were always win a Cy Young that's like the personal achievement thing and then make the game better for the next generation of players than I had it easier access to information better training better health like whatever it is right just make it a better landscape for the next generation and I think having that access and being able to see the behind the scenes of what's going on both in competition but also in the clubhouse you know during what's the daily routine like what's the hotel situation like whatever like oh you can start identifying with a player or a league or a team or whatever and it no longer feels so far away when i was a kid i'd watch there's no access to this right if i wanted to learn from a big leaguer it was picking up like a book that an old school guy had written and like there was maybe two of them and it's outdated by the time me read it yeah and like you'd go to spring training game and like you'd try to talk to these players and like maybe get an autograph like that was the level of access and i always looked at you know i'd sit in the stands at dodger stadium had headphones on listen to vin on the radio and i'm out in the bleachers and it's like these people i'm watching like manny ramirez and andre ethier and kevin brown and all these like dodger guys i'm like those guys are aliens like they're big leaguers i'm just me and i'll never be that like i'm not the same as that person they're superstars i'm not so there's this huge gap where it was never like a realistic thing for me where i'm like being a big leaguer is a realistic goal it just wasn't even in the realm of possibility i feel like now if you can eat the same cereal as a kid or wear the same shoes listen to the same music or make the same watch the same tv shows whatever those kids can look and be like Like, oh, I can see myself being that because, like, I do the same things as that big leaguer does.

32:26And so I'm trying to kind of demystify the lifestyle and the in-game interactions and the clubhouse and the travel. So, like, when I first got to pro ball, I stepped into a pro club. I had no idea. Like, I got drafted. I stepped in first day. And college baseball, when I played, wasn't what it is today. There wasn't the$100 million stadium, guys getting paid, like locker rooms that look like better than most big leagues. Dude, it's insane. It's nuts, dude. Oh, boy. As we all know, starting something new isn't just hard. It's absolutely terrifying. So much work goes into the thing that you're not entirely sure will work out.

33:07And it can be hard to make that leap of faith. Trust me, I know this feeling. And you may be thinking, like I did, what if no one buys my products? Don't worry. Shopify is on your side to help. Get started with your own design studio. With hundreds of ready-to-use templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand style. So you can get the word out, like you have a full marketing team behind you. Easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are scrolling or even strolling. Best yet, Shopify is your commerce expert with world-class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping, down to processing returns and beyond.

33:49It's time to turn those what ifs into Shopify today. Sign up for your$1 per month trial at shopify.com slash TDS. Go to shopify.com slash TDS. That's shopify.com slash TDS. Like we were like, sometimes we didn't have a clubhouse. Like when you go on the road, like, you know what I mean? like you show up like you're changing in the dugout like playing a college baseball game so i show up to like pro ball i'm like oh like i've never done this like what is okay there's a clubby like i got to figure out what what is a clubby we didn't have one like oh they they do okay they do the laundry they like provide some food like oh you have to tip on there it is like i'm trying to figure all this stuff out right i'd never seen it before like oh i didn't know that you wore like grays on the road and whites at home you know i just like these just little things i went to spring training my first spring training i was in big league camp i didn't have a minor league spring training i'm like this third overall pick i walk in i have no idea what's going on like what time oh we get here at 6 30 in the morning like that's early like i'm used to going playing baseball at night like that's gonna be an adjustment like oh my goodness like where's my what do you okay i have this locker but like what's this where do i go to look at the schedule like you know oh practice isn't always at the same time every day at the same field oh okay i gotta i'm trying to figure all this out as like a 20 21 year old kid and i'd never seen it before but i feel like for the kids nowadays if you can get some content out there where they at least see like oh i watched trevor's vlog and spring training is kind of like this and kind of like that and okay i'm at least i've seen it before and somewhat familiar i've had guys like go over to japan and like oh yeah i watched your vlog and like it really prepared me for kind of the what i'm going to see over there and like i feel like it was really helpful to set those expectations so i knew what to what i was getting myself into um same thing like with mexican team mexican you bring up a good point man i want to jump in here real quickly because yeah i'm talking too much no you're you're great no you're great dude keep going but i want to edify what you're talking about because you've you've paved the way for a lot of different pitchers and a lot of different baseball players.

36:02You know, one of which is what you just said, you know, giving them access and insight to what it's going to look like, but also because of how you took control of the biomechanics, the pitch tunneling, spin rate, you made that sexy for this current generation, and now they freaking focus on it. Like, how do you feel about building that legacy, dude? It's like... I mean, your teammates were trying to figure out what to eat for dinner, and you're in your pitch tunneling. Yeah. this one's like a double-edged sword for me. Very proud of it, first off. Not because of anything that I did, not like some self-glorifying, like I'm the man and I invented shit, but the hours and days, weeks, years that went into it, all the work that was done to try to learn the first principles of all these things.

36:56It wasn't just me. It was a lot of other people in baseball, kind of outsiders at the time. You know, my dad was a huge influence, but also people like Alan Jaeger and Jim Wagner and Perry Husband and Ron Woolforth and Kyle Bode at Driveline. Like, at the time, like, these are kind of name brands now. But at the time, like, these were, like, fringe, like, kind of internet guru people that are kind of, like, not welcome in professional baseball. But they were doing really cool stuff in training. and so to kind of come together as that group and be able to penetrate into the game where now a lot of the guys that i was training with like part of that group was derrick johnson who was the pitching coach at vanderbilt at the time who then was my pitching coach in cincinnati when i won a young and so like the the full circle like i remember sitting with dj at a texas baseball ranch like inner circle dinner and hearing him talk when i was like 14 or 16 whatever it was and like talk about these concepts and like no no one from the ranch was like welcome and it was it was like this hard line like separation thing like kyle bode was not welcome in pro but driveline like absolutely not now it's just like everyone goes it's so accepted it's amazing organizations send their entire staff over there to like go train and get better in the off season type of thing but like none of that existed so i'm proud of the work that i put in along with all the other people that were doing work there to have been able to penetrate this usually like closed off like you know it's a it's a it's an old boys club inner circle of baseball like this is the way we do it and like absolutely if you're not in you're out and if you're out you can never get in type of thing um so i'm proud of like being able to to penetrate that to get these new ideas and this new you know it's more of a scientific approach to training and looking at things in because the effect that that's had on the careers even past the reach that i'm able to have personally but just being part of that group that injected this mindset this training this idea into baseball has helped so many people be better baseball players but like have the opportunities to play at a college level and what does that do for a kid life wise like you you play in high school versus you play in college like having some better information might be the difference there like when you look back like college baseball was one of the coolest times of my life yeah man like the people that you meet the relationships you have the memories that you create like bonding with the boys like you know weekends it's great it was it was amazing i do they just seem to think about it man like you had to throw in the 2010 world series dude yeah last pitch ever thrown in uh in rosenblatt stadium like oh you threw the last pitch i didn't throw it but like we were the last game there wow dude so i played in roseblatt right and then when i was at lsu we were in the old alex box yeah so when you talk about 100 million dollar stadiums and shit dude like our clubhouse was kind of like this room dude it was a throw a pool table and some lockers in it and yeah welcome to fucking lsu it's like wow now you walk in there's you know lights on the ceiling with The logo, dude.

40:08I just took my kid there two weeks ago. It was bad, bro. It was so sick. But when you unravel everything you're talking about, the impact that you've had on the game, whether directly or indirectly, has been so massive even in the last five years because of this type of training. And when I look at modern-day arms, there's a lot more arms throwing 100, 101. one so let's take i'm gonna go with my boy paul skeins right not my boy but he's an lsu guy so he's my boy you know when you look at him at air force and then transition to lsu yeah bro you're talking about two different two different arms yeah is this and i've seen him with water bags and things like that this is the kind of training that he adopted right yeah i mean Paul's also just an outlier athlete.

41:03Big, mobile, moves well, cares. You see Shohei's the same way. Super talented, fast, quick, great athlete. Also cares and takes care of himself. Also was a catcher. Yeah. Yes, it's partially genetic gift, but there's so many people that are genetically gifted. The reason I was able to compete is because I cared more than the next guy, so I could outdo my genetic deficits with work ethic. It's funny. I go back and forth with my dad about this all the time because I give away so much information. I just say everything for free and tell people. He's like, you're giving away your advantage. I'm like, no, because no one else will actually do it.

41:45But now you're starting to see if you're going to pitch in the big leagues, if you're going to hit in the big leagues, if you're going to compete and stay there for a long time, not only do you have to be like a genetic freak, gifted genetic athlete, you also have to care like paul cares like he works he tries like he's studying he's you know doing this new whether the water bag works for everyone or not or whatever like he's doing that he's lifting he's like there's there's things that he's doing that are greater than what the next guy is doing plus he has a genetic base that's higher than most to like to jump from yeah i mean absolutely is is his physical talent is superior yeah right when you look at so there's a couple things there right i want to tackle the first thing because you said your your genetic um what was the word you used um not shortcomings but like deficit deficit dude you're 35 and you're still throwing 95 and you're touching what 97 99 yeah i've topped at 98 so far this year 98 4 98 6 or something so what genetic deficiency are we actually talking about bro because you can be in great shape and know these things but if you don't have the ability that arm that arm whipping that You're not hitting that.

42:57Yeah, for sure. But Paul's sitting 98. Yeah. Like cruising. No, I understand that. Like when he ramps it up, it's 102. Yeah, and there's this. When I ramp it up, it's like scraping 99. Like I'm cruising 93.5, 94. Yeah. Which is great. Sure. When I was a kid, like so actually 2014, I averaged 94.6 on my fastball. I was the sixth hardest throwing starter in all of baseball. I wonder what that stat would be like now. 94.6 is below average. Last year in the playoffs, the average fastball velocity was 96.6. I know it's the playoffs and guys are hyped up and adrenaline and it's the best of the best and whatever.

43:36But my fastball velocity has stayed the same my entire career, and it's gone from like 70th or 80th percentile to like 40th percentile. That's wild to me, dude. Because of how fast the game advances. Wild to me. So I think my benefit genetically is I can handle volume. Okay. and i can throw longer like i have a really good feel for my body i can morph my mechanics i can feel like make adjustments and i think that's really what's helped me stay healthy and because of that volume i've been able to like maximize my movement efficiency and i can generate upper 90s velocity every now and then when i have like a lot of adrenaline when i'm you know it's mad or a big situation or it's super important or whatever but i just i'm not like you look at me and you look at paul skiing like we stand next to each other and be like that's an athlete he's an athlete i'm not like that's there's a difference there it doesn't matter how much i train more than other guys like i'm in the gym six days a week i'm you know sauna cold tub red light float tank nutrition i have blood work done every six months they draw like 30 vials of blood all my diet plan is based on my you know my blood work and i don't eat anything else but that a chef makes four meals a day and i'm supplements taking 30 different pills or 50 different pills at different times and like protein like i'm dialed with this stuff and i look like i look versus shohei or yeah like it's yeah so i don't have those genetic gifts but i think i make up for it with you know handling the volume yeah yeah that's a good point man you know let's uh let's transition a little bit all right so i mean we've touched on you know you being locked out blackballed a little bit you know what is it actually though because it's not because when i look at this it's not what happened it's it's the noise in the media and i'm hearing this all the time now and you know i'll hop on threads that rachel's kind of you know popping off and sticking up and i'm like well now this guy's my friend so like i'm gonna go i'm gonna say something yeah and can't clubhouse cancer yeah what you want to know how that started i i do okay so 2011 i'm drafted i've never been to spring training so in the off season between 2011 i played like five weeks or something at the end of the year uh minor league season and then went to the offseason going into spring training i was like i asked my agent at the time like hey joel what's what do i need to know for spring training and you've you've played and like what do i need it's like you know you're gonna be in big league camp you're a rookie keep your head down don't say much just listen follow the guys like look at what the veterans do kind of be quiet and just follow along it's like okay great that fits my personality perfectly fine i was shy i'm still shy i don't i'm not the type of person to just go up and start a conversation i'm not like a social butterfly you know um so i go into spring training and i'm quiet i don't say much just keep my head down just look around follow along but i was drafted there overall and because i wasn't the first person to say hi to someone in the morning or the you know now i start getting this reputation of being like aloof and like feeling like i'm better i'm too good for everybody he won't talk to us that's yeah that's kind of the reputation i got okay so for spring training goes on i go to the minor leagues for i think it was like three months or whatever i make my big league debut so i have i get to atlanta the day before my big league debut so i get there saturday i have a sunday uh start like i got there late enough that like my catch game for that day like before my start was with my agent in a park by the hotel i didn't even get to go to the field type of thing like that's how late i got in like okay to atlanta so i go out there miguel montero is my catcher first game never worked with him before he's caught one bullpen of mine in spring training like never called pitches for me we didn't have a chance to like talk before the game or whatever it's like whatever outing goes how it goes i didn't do particularly well or whatever So we go home and I'm out for BP and our pitching coach comes over and is like, hey, after BP, we're going to have a meeting with you and the coaching staff and the two catchers to get on the same page about pitch calling and whatever else.

48:15Okay, great. Normal meeting that would happen. I go in after BP, sitting by my locker, media comes in. like hey talk about your big league debut blah blah blah oh you know we heard you're going to have a meeting with the catchers like tell us about that like oh yeah we're just going to meet on the same page of pitch calling how I like to pitch how I like to call games whatever innocuous I figured okay if the media knows someone from the organization must have told them I also assume if I know that there's going to be a meeting that the catchers and the coaching staff knows that there's going to be a meeting because the coach is the one that came and told me that they were gonna have a meeting and didn't say don't say shit yeah just like hey after bp we're gonna have this meeting okay great media goes from my locker to miguel montero's locker hey we heard that you guys are gonna have a meeting and trevor said that you guys are just gonna talk about how he likes to pitch and he's gonna blah blah blah and he's like no one had told him the coaching staff hadn't told him that we're gonna have a meeting so the media says oh we heard from trevor that you're gonna have a meeting he's gonna tell you how to pitch and how he likes to pitch and blah blah and miguel's like oh well he knows where my locker is if he wants to have a meeting he can come talk to me i've only caught hall of famers like shilling and johnson and this and that and like so he says all this stuff in the media right which like could have handled it better probably yeah 1000 also not his fault no like if you got this rookie like i'm gonna tell my catcher how i like to pitch or whatever like and i already have this reputation because i didn't say much in spring training of being like oh I'm better than everybody else which is not the case at all it's the exact opposite I was shy but that's the context he has so he says this stuff in the media and Bob Nightingale goes and writes an article with Montero's quotes and then I get this reputation of being a bad teammate because of Montero's quotes about me that was in 2012 July and for the rest of my time I've been quote bad teammate Now, I will challenge anyone listening to this from 2013 till current day to go find one single negative quote.

50:34Not media like, oh, teammates say this about him or whatever. Find a quote from any one of my teammates that's negative. Just one. Find one. They don't exist. There are none. but I'm somehow quote unquote, a clubhouse cancer, bad teammate. Oh boy. As we all know, starting something new isn't just hard. It's absolutely terrifying. So much work goes into the thing that you're not entirely sure will work out. And it can be hard to make that leap of faith. Trust me. I know this feeling. And you may be thinking like I did. What if no one buys my products? Don't worry. Shopify is on your side to help.

51:16Get started with your own design studio with hundreds of ready to used templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand style. So you can get the word out like you have a full marketing team behind you. Easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are scrolling or even strolling. Best yet, Shopify is your commerce expert with world-class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping down to processing returns and beyond. It's time to turn those what-ifs into with shopify today sign up for your one dollar per month trial at shopify.com slash tds go to shopify.com slash tds that's shopify.com slash tds like i don't get it there's zero like the only quotes about me as a teammate are glowing reviews from mookie bets or albert pujols or francisco and or or and you can go down the list like once once mookie bets and albert pool says something kind and favorite it's it it's over but it's not it's it should be it should be it should be and the thing that i found interesting and i and i texted you immediately when i saw it you know the no hitter yeah you know and again on air congratulations dude i mean what you know pitch clock violation away from being a perfect game and uh one of these i don't what is it 0-2 curveball right down the middle that got balled somehow.

52:50Oh, my God. Yeah, well, umpires sometimes suck. That sucks. But then the narrative on social media was, look at this. No one's congratulating him. Terrible teammate. Shithead. Cancer. It was about to be a doubleheader. And if anybody knows anything about baseball, you're off the field quick because you've got to go in the clubhouse. You've got to change. you gotta eat and you had 30 minutes in between hard hard 30 minutes yeah and it's a seven inning game and like it was scheduled seven so it counts as a no-hitter right but like everyone that plays baseball plays nine and it's different when you play seven when you play nine perception and it's a double header and it was raining and like all this different stuff it was also my second week with the team.

53:43Yeah. Like, like what the fuck? I don't know these guys. We haven't like, you know, we're getting to know each other. We haven't been through a long season. It's not like I've been in this organization for seven years and everyone's like, oh, I'm so like, whatever. Like I kind of showed up. I did like five days of spring training and then like eight days later, I like threw a no hitter or something. And that's the other thing too. What they don't understand is all these teammates, these new teammates that you have, right? They might have, you know, they've, they've only heard media. They, they may be staying back like he might be mean it might be mean you know let me just let me just learn them yeah you know what i'm saying it wasn't even any of that though like for the no hitter it was just like the game ended we had won like 13 to 11 to nothing or whatever and we had a double header and then everyone like did their normal we won a game and then everyone gave me a hug in the line and then they dumped water on me and then they all signed a baseball for me as like a commemorative thing for the day.

54:42It's badass, dude. And I stood out there soaking wet from getting Gatorade dumped on me, doing media, and signing for the fans that were there. All of that got cut. And it was just like, I throw the pitch, my catcher comes out, the guys do the normal celebration in the middle of the infield, cut the clip, and we show none of the other stuff. Yeah, so you know exactly what clip I'm talking about. You know exactly the clip. You guys were walking behind the mound. You're in that no man's land between second base and the mound. But that's the thing, though, dude. That's the narrative. And that's what people are doing so well at controlling with you.

55:17And it's so crazy to me because I've spent the last, what, hour with you? Yeah. There's no way I could possibly say, like, that guy would be a shitty teammate. What's interesting to me is there's two things. If you go on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, one perception of me. If you go on X, completely different perception. And like in person, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, in person, I've not had like any negative interactions. Everyone in person has been great. Not a single, this entire last five years, not a single negative comment from anyone in person. Not one. Yeah. youtube tiktok like everyone's like oh bauer this that and we love the content right you go on x and it's just like non-stop find anything you can possibly think of like it's gone this season it's been like oh you're washed it's gone from washed like oh you're well yeah you're doing well but you're pitching against like guys with day jobs oh you're pitching against guys this oh you're fat like it's got it's gone like all whatever we can find You threw a no-hitter, but your teammates didn't celebrate with you the split second after.

56:38So you're clubhouse cancer, this, that, and the other. Must be true. Has to be. But the stat that's interesting to me is there's like... Do you know the dead internet theory? No. So the dead internet theory basically states that at some point, the majority of internet traffic will be bots, and humans will cease to use the internet because of that, and they'll opt for in-person interaction with humans and the internet will die. Dead internet theory. It's just crossed the 50 % mark. Like 50 % of internet traffic nowadays is bot. So when I think about X and I'm like, oh, all these negative comments, how is it that I put out a post and within three minutes of me posting it, there's 10 like just the most vile, like hate Trevor Bauer things and you click on one and you're like, oh you have two followers created two months ago there's in your faceless channel you have a cat as a profile oh you were created you know six years ago but you have four tweets and they're all about me hmm and you start thinking and i'm very convinced that the majority of the negativity on x is bot traffic i would i would agree there's a lot going on on instagram too like some like there's people out there that just bought people to death yes like i last night went to bed I woke up, woke up to all these different, I'm like, what is this?