The Los Angeles Dodgers officially announced the signing of Trevor Bauer to a three-year contract last week.
While the club didn’t disclose the terms of the deal, it is believed to be for $102 million and contain opt outs after each of the first two seasons. A Southern California native and UCLA graduate, Bauer expressed excitement of getting to play for his hometown team during an introductory press conference at Dodger Stadium.
He also addressed other topics relating to his social media usage, including recent tweets that urged fans to respect his personal space when seeking an autograph. “I was walking through the hotel lobby, getting on the elevator to go up to my room and I had an excited fan follow me up to the elevator, asking me to sign,” Bauer began to explain.
“I told him, ‘I’m in my place of residence, I’m not going to sign at the hotel. If you see me outside the hotel in public, feel free to come up and ask, and I’d be happy to sign.’ At the hotel it’s my place of residence, and I’m not going to sign.
“The individual continued to ask and press and follow me, so I said, ‘Can you please have some respect for my personal space? I’m trying to be respectful of you. Please have some respect for me at my hotel.’
“He continued to follow me up until the point where I was getting on the elevator, he was right outside, continuing to ask and press me for a signature. I want to reiterate that I really enjoy interacting with fans.
“I love signing for fans. I do so at the stadium, when fans are allowed in, basically every game. I do so outside of the stadium. I love seeing fans in public. I do just think there needs to be a little bit of respect for personal space when someone is at their place of residence, just as human beings.
“If someone says, ‘Hey, not right now. I’m eating or I’m at my house.’ Whatever the case is, just have a little bit of respect and understand we are people too. I do my best to sign for everybody and interact with the fans in every way possible.
“I have a lot of really fun ideas that I can’t wait to do this season to interact with the community and Dodger fans. I promise I’ll be signing plenty, but I think there needs to be a little bit of respect for personal space, especially at someone’s place of residence.”
Andrew Friedman credits Dodgers ownership for Bauer signing
Also present at Bauer’s introductory press conference was Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman. He credited the organization’s ownership group for stepping up and making the signing possible.
“Trevor was very front and center for us, so we had a few different phone calls and stayed in contact,” Friedman said. “As we got into a couple weeks ago, things started to pick up and there were days I felt optimistic and certain days where I didn’t, but I think that’s the nature of most — if not all — negotiations.
“From our standpoint, I went to bed Thursday night (Feb. 4) really bummed. Thinking that it wasn’t going to work out and waking up Friday, continuing the process of having conversations, our ownership group — Mark Walter — put some wind behind the sail and said, ‘Let’s go get this done.’
“Fortunately it wasn’t too late and we were able to come to this outcome. Couldn’t be more excited about it, but there were definitely times along the way where I wasn’t as optimistic. To be sitting here, obviously in this case I’ll take the result.”
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