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.

"Nothing" Is the Hardest Thing To Say

NOW COACHING THIRD....BOBBY....VALENTINE....

One of the best parts of Spring Training is what happens when guys who have largely been ignored to go hunting/fishing/truck washing/whatever for four months suddenly get an Edible Arrangements-sized bouquet of microphones stuck in their faces by reporters who haven't anything to talk about except salary arbitration (which is math and which many of them therefore do not actually understand). The players, understandably, are not in mid-season cliche-spouting form, and as such there's a greater-than-average chance of getting something pants-on-head quotable.

Like, say some passive-aggressive stream-of-consciousness sandbagging of former teammates and managers. Take, for example, Red Sox DH David Ortiz taking the opportunity to throw long-gone and discredited former manager Bobby Valentine under the bus. Now, the odds are that the next team Valentine manages consists entirely of nine year olds and has the words "SPONSORED BY CONKLIN LIQUORS" on the backs of their jerseys. It is also entirely likely that by the end of that season, the kids will have grown tired of Valentine's erratic distribution of orange slices, his calling out of the team's third baseman for spending too much time on math homework, and his refusal to accept the fact that one of the pitchers actually did get a boo-boo on his elbow when he ran into the catcher by accident chasing a pop-up. But you know what? It doesn't matter. Valentine's gone, Ortiz is still there for another year or two, and everyone moves on...except someone's got to get in last licks.

Then there's the fun in Arizona, where catcher Miguel Montero (the quintessential $9 NL-only roto league catcher) made a point of ripping former Diamondbacks pitching prospect Trevor Bauer for his poor work ethic and inability to take instruction. Bauer, who ended up in Cleveland this offseason as part of Arizona's plan to field a team of nine cloned, stubbly Kirk Gibsons, has his own unique throwing and workout regimen, and regardless of results, this didn't sit well with DBacks management, coaches...or players. And so Montero unleashed a rant that, translated from the original Khazad, can be boiled down to "I totally dumped him first." (Bauer, for his part, responded from Cleveland with a bit of verbal jujitsu that can be summarized as "He crazy. God bless the troops!")

You don't get this stuff during the season, except maybe at the end when the ship's going down and everyone's fighting for a job. But for now, baseball is fresh and so are the opinions, and all I can say is "pass the popcorn".