A former NL Cy Young winner can’t get an MLB team to sign him, even if he offers to play for free. Trevor Bauer has not pitched in a single MLB game since 2021 despite his desire to continue in the big leagues. Following a dominant start in the Atlantic League, Bauer weighed the possibilities of whether the league had blackballed him during a recent interview.

Bauer hasn’t thrown a major league pitch since his 2021 run with the Dodgers. Back then, he was proving his 2020 Cy Young win wasn’t a fluke, putting up a 2.59 ERA and a 1.00 WHIP over 17 starts right before MLB placed him on leave. The Dodgers eventually cut him in early 2023. Speaking to OutKick’s Dan Dakich recently, Bauer said he actually came close to signing with a few teams, but the offers vanished at the very last second.

“I don’t know exactly what goes on behind the scenes. I have my suspicions, of course. All I know is what the pattern is that we see,” Bauer told Dakich, when he was asked if Commissioner Rob Manfred banned him.

Bauer claimed he often receives positive feedback from franchises, only for them to abruptly back out.

He remarked, “I can’t tell you how many times, how many different teams we’ve talked to. They’re like ‘Oh yeah, it’s done. We’ve talked to the front office, they’re on board. The players are on board. We’ve talked to PR, they’re on board, we’ve talked to ownership, they’re on board. We’ve just got to get final approval. Keep your phone on, we’re going to call you.”

“Then, nothing happens for two or three days, and we get a call back saying, ‘Hey, we can’t really talk about this, but sorry, it’s not going to work out. When that pattern happens over multiple different organizations over multiple different years… I think what I think.”

The hesitation from MLB teams comes from several sexual assault claims that ruined his career. On April 29, 2022, the league gave Bauer a huge 324-game ban for breaking its rules against domestic violence and sexual assault. However, local police and prosecutors in Los Angeles decided not to press any criminal charges against him.

An independent arbitrator later reduced his suspension to 194 games. Once MLB reinstated him, the Dodgers released him.

In 2023, Bauer and his first accuser dropped their competing lawsuits. They exchanged no money and admitted no wrongdoing. While three other women also made claims, prosecutors later criminally charged one of those accusers with defrauding the pitcher.

To keep his career going, Bauer went overseas. He spent the 2023 and 2025 seasons in Japan with the Yokohama DeNA BayStars. Between those stints, he pitched for Mexico’s Diablos Rojos in 2024, where he won Pitcher of the Year. Now, he is playing for the Long Island Ducks. This is his first time pitching professionally in the US since 2021.

Yet, the MLB hasn’t opened its doors for him.

In the interview, the 35-year-old revealed that he has even offered to play for free or donate his entire salary, yet nothing convinced those teams to offer him a contract. In 2025, he volunteered to pitch for the injury-plagued New York Yankees. However, all his proposal did was offend MLB fans.

“I still don’t have a job. I’m not allowed to. I haven’t been allowed to play baseball in MLB again. I’ve offered to play for free, I’ve offered to go to the minor league, I’ve offered to literally donate my entire salary back to the teams’ foundations, to play for literally zero dollars,” Bauer told Dakich.

As the former Cy Young winner clearly expressed his desire to play in the big leagues, he has also shown why he deserves another shot while pitching for the Ducks.

Trevor Bauer answers critics with a no-hitter

Trevor Bauer’s current team, the Long Island Ducks, secured a 13-0 win over the Lancaster Stormers. In that win, Bauer was untouchable.

Against the Stormers on Sunday, he threw seven hitless innings, only the third in franchise history. He struck out seven batters in 84 pitches while allowing only one walk. Following the performance, Bauer took to social media to take a jibe at his critics.

“Trevor Bauer s–ks so much. He’s so washed,” he posted on X.

In a recent YouTube vlog titled ‘I Joined My New Team in New York,’ Bauer also addressed the lack of negative reactions regarding his return to America.

“I didn’t hear any negative comments. There was no protests,” Bauer said. “Nothing blew up. There was no meteor that hit the stadium. Apparently, those fears have been massively overstated, I think. Imagine that I can pitch in America and not have massive protests and get cancelled and whatever else.”

Bauer is doing what he can in his current circumstances, but only time will tell if a no-hitter is enough to lift his banishment.