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August 1, 2012

Punk Hits

Bauer Pop

by Ian Miller

Coming into the 2012 season, Trevor Bauer was one of the most talked-about pitching prospects in baseball. He decimated records and hitters throughout his college career at UCLA, and won just about every conceivable award, including the Golden Spikes in 2011. After being selected third overall by the Diamondbacks, he signed a major-league deal and was in Double-A before the year was out. In the 2012 BP annual, we called him “a viable 21-year-old candidate for Arizona’s Opening Day rotation.”

Bauer was called up to the big club in June of this year and, instead of continuing to dominate hitters the way he has his entire life (I’m assuming), he, well, kinda sucked. Over four starts, his line looks like this:

That was enough to get him sent back to Triple-A Reno for more seasoning, where he made one start before he was diagnosed with “arm fatigue” and was forced to skip a start or two. It’s easy to blame Bauer’s famously crazy-ass warm-up routine for his arm troubles, but I submit that the only thing keeping him from reaching his ceiling is his terrible, terrible taste in music.

The Problem, and the Solution
Trevor Bauer is not shy. He has gained notoriety (and no small amount of criticism) for posting videos  of his pitching mechanics and his candor on Twitter, as well as for his burgeoning career as a rapper. But what concerns me most for Bauer’s long-term performance is his penchant for listening to awful metalcore as part of his game-day preparations.

Just weeks before his first big-league call-up, ESPN posted a story called “D-backs phenom Bauer needs his metal,” which included the playlist for the music that accompanies his unconventional warm-up routine. Anyone with a passing familiarity with modern metal will see at first glance that this list is terrible, and clearly, warming up to these songs will preve