We couldn't think of a more interesting player on the Tribe roster to chat about non-baseball stuff with than Trevor Bauer. He's built drones to fly over spring training games, after all. Who cares that MLB said that was against the rules? He's taken over the @Indians Twitter account to live-tweet a game. He's worked on somewhere near 147 different kinds of pitches over his career. And Bauer isn't shy about his feelings on social media or reacting to asshole fans.
"I like to respond to people who ask questions," he says. "Or as a resource to kids who don't have access to information, baseball-wise. Those are my favorite ones to respond to, people asking questions about how do you do this, or 'I know you're working on a two-seam,' stuff that is intellectual, to help them in their pursuit of whatever they're doing."
But. Yeah. Trolls. Those at-replies are a dangerous place for anyone in the public eye.
"The other stuff that gets me," Bauer says, "is when they say something that is completely unfounded, or has no real thought behind it. There are negative comments -- you suck! -- and there's nothing to really say to those. Or the people who want to insult your character, call you a terrible human being and say I hope you blow your arm out because you like Duke basketball. Or they assume that I have a certain problem and try to give me advice."
For instance, on March 10 when this question came in: "Honest question, man. Do you ever feel like you're overthinking on the mound? Carrasco attributes success to not overthinking."
Bauer responded honestly and in an eight-tweet breakdown that included the following excerpt:.
"Now if someone said I was activating my prefrontal cortex or trying to run a bottom up system from the top down, then we might be able to have a productive discussion but I challenge you to even define what overthinking is. Where's the line? How do you even quantify something like that? It's just a way for fans who have no idea why something is happening to sound like they know something when they don't. IMHO."
"It's not just Twitter," he says. "In general, if I'm signing for fans and the fans are like, 'Hey, do this in the first inning,' I feel like swatting their card out of their hands. People try to offer advice and they have no idea what the situation is and they think they know better than the person going through it. I've spent years working on this stuff and they think it's a simple fix: just throw strikes. I think the main thing, if I could boil it down: It's oversimplification that bothers me. Pitching is not simple. It's the different phrases like 'game management.' What does that even mean? Let's define the term so we can have a productive conversation. Don't tell me to not think too much."
