PHOENIX – Los Angeles Dodgers slugger Mookie Betts hopes major league teams consider signing his former teammate, pitcher Trevor Bauer, this winter.
“It's something to think about,” Betts told the Los Angeles Times on Monday at the World Series in Phoenix.
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Betts was invited by Major League Baseball to Game 3 between the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks to provide content for its cable channel and social media platforms.
The Dodgers released Bauer in January after his unprecedented 324-game suspension for violating baseball's policy on domestic violence and sexual assault was reduced to 194 games by an independent arbitrator.
After no other team signed him, Bauer pitched in Japan. He was the 2020 NL Cy Young Award winner.
“My experience with Bauer is not anything remotely close to what everyone else’s experience is. I love him. I think he’s an awesome guy. The personal things? I have no control. I have no say. Obviously, nothing ever came from it,” Betts told the Los Angeles Times.
"He’s an awesome pitcher. He’s a great guy, somebody who wants to take the mound every fifth day. But, at the end of the day, I don’t make the decision. That’s a decision that’s not as simple as baseball.”
Bauer and a woman who accused him of beating and sexually assaulting her in 2021 settled their legal dispute this month, according to Bauer’s attorneys. Bauer was placed on administrative leave by MLB in July 2021 after the allegations were made by the woman, who said Bauer assaulted her on two different occasions at his home in Pasadena during what she said began as consensual sexual encounters between them.
The 32-year-old Bauer denied the allegation, saying the encounters were consensual.
Prosecutors decided not to file charges in February 2022.
Bauer faces a different accusation from an Arizona woman who alleges in a lawsuit he held a knife at her throat and choked her until she passed out during a rape that left her pregnant in late 2020.
Bauer was never arrested or charged and has countersued, denying the allegations and accusing the woman of faking a pregnancy and trying to extort money from him.
The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they have been victims of sexual assault.
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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb