Your Trevor Bauer Hour of Power

"We bought these hoodies at Belk"

Trevor Bauer can't rap. This, in the grand scheme of things, means absolutely nothing.

Trevor Bauer can't find the strike zone. This is considerably more important to the young man's future.
Bauer, the former Diamondbacks prospect who found himself shipped out of town in exchange for Didi Gregorius and a past-his-sell-by-date Lars Anderson, attracted some brief notoriety this spring when his former catcher, Miguel "Ghan-buri-Ghan" Montero said mean things about Bauer's ability to take instruction. Because it was early spring training and early spring training consists largely of men wearing pajamas playing catch, this briefly became a "thing".

And when intrepid reporters found evidence of Bauer's attempted dis rap directed at various unnamed "haters", it became more of a thing. Because clearly here was Bauer responding to Montero in the sort of way only a 22 year old would think was appropriate, and by the way he can't rap, and doesn't this prove everything that Montero said (apparently "is in love with his fastball" is code for "has no flow") and, well whatever.

Except, of course, that a quick check would reveal that the track in question - and make no mistake, it is terrible; Bauer-as-rapper is about as smooth on the mic as Bruce Springsteen trying to do Pagliacci with a sinus infection and one foot in a bear trap - was recorded in December, well before Montero laid down his version of the law. So it couldn't possibly have been a response to Montero's criticism unless Bauer is actually a Time Lord and hopped into his TARDIS (which, to be fair, has a sweet mixing board) to go back a couple of months and drop the track before the beef started. Then again, if he did have access to a TARDIS you'd think he'd use it to gather up some better collaborators - I can totally see David Tennant talking Tupac, Biggie and maybe Kool Moe Dee into the TARDIS, and, well, anyway, you get the idea.

At any other place, any other time, the news that a 22 year old rich kid from the suburbs had posted a crappy attempt at rapping on YouTube would have garnered precisely zero notice. The fact that this time, it was news (for certain values of "news") just reaffirms how much we need actual intel out of spring training. Bring on the phenoms, bring on the guys with visa issues, bring on the training camp battles and the "Best Shape Of His Life" stories and everything else we've come to grow and love and expect out of early baseball coverage.

But for the love of God, leave the 22 year olds rapping out of it.