Bauer: Owners and MLB blocked my playoff team deals.

Trevor Bauer says playoff teams wanted to sign him this past season.

But team owners and Major League Baseball blocked every attempt.

The 2020 National League Cy Young Award winner has not pitched in the big leagues since 2021.

In an interview with the Dominican YouTube page Rompiendo Sports, Bauer described a pattern of internal resistance.

“We’ve talked to every team and all the baseball people, all the front office people, the GMs, the coaches, the players, they’re all, ‘Yeah, we want you. We want to sign you. We’d sign you in a heartbeat, but we’re not allowed to,’” Bauer said.

He said the block comes from the top.

“We’ve talked to people that, they’re like, ‘Hey, the GM, the president of the team, everybody on board.’ They take it to the owner. Owner’s like, ‘No.’ They ask, ‘Why? Why not?’ ‘Leave it alone. Don’t bring it up again.’”

Bauer provided a specific example from the 2026 season.

“We had people on playoff teams this past year that were like, ‘We need Trevor. Bring him in.’ And they're like, ‘If you bring his name up again, we will fire you on the spot. Do not bring it up again.’ I mean, we’re talking playoff teams, really good people.”

He said the opposition extends across the league.

“It’s not just one team. It’s like eight or 10 teams at this point,” he said.

Bauer also claimed that former colleagues warned him directly.

“We’ve had people in organizations that I’ve been with in the past, they’re like, ‘Hey, I can’t say this publicly because I’ll lose my job. But just know they’re working against you. They’re not going to let you play again. So, just so you can know in your head and move on with your life, they will never let you play again.’ And I know this. We’ve heard this stuff from all sorts of different [places].”

Bauer acknowledged that his own actions contributed to the situation.

He admitted bringing “bad media attention” upon himself with “sticky stuff and cheating scandals” and the sexual abuse allegations against him.

“Even though they all know it's false,” he said.

“They don't have to let me back, because they can hide behind if an organization signs me, it would just be too much negative media pressure. There's nothing I can do about it.”

In the same interview, Bauer also blasted the Major League Baseball Players Association and its former executive director, Tony Clark.

Clark resigned on February 17, 2026, after an internal investigation revealed he had an inappropriate relationship with his sister-in-law, who also worked for the union.

“You've seen what problems Tony [Clark is] having right now, taking money from players and funneling it to his family members and his own problems,” Bauer said.

“I'd imagine he didn't really want to stand behind me because he didn't want people looking into him for what he was doing off of the field. Of course, it all came to light anyway.”

Bauer said he spoke directly with Clark about the union’s lack of support.

“I talked to him on the phone and I was like, Tony, I am the reigning Cy Young Award winner. I signed the biggest contract in the history of the sport for a pitcher on annual average value. Like, I am at the top of the game. You guys can't come out as a union and say, ‘Hey, Trevor Bauer should be playing Major League Baseball?’ And he said, ‘No, we can't make that statement because if we support you, we're inadvertently not supporting a player whose job you would take,’” Bauer claimed.

The interview was published on Instagram on Thursday.

It came one day after Bauer pitched for the Estrellas Orientales in LIDOM, the Dominican Republic’s professional winter league.

He left that game after two innings, complaining about the condition of the pitching mound at Estadio Cibao in Santiago.

Bauer spent the 2026 season playing in independent ball and in Mexico before joining LIDOM.

His last MLB appearance was on June 28, 2021, when he threw six innings of two-run ball with eight strikeouts for the Los Angeles Dodgers.