Yankees: Imagining Gerrit Cole and Trevor Bauer’s free agency phone call

What if old enemies Gerrit Cole and Trevor Bauer bury the hatchet this offseason and pave the way to sharing a Yankees rotation?

By any stretch, it’s been a tough week, Yankees fans. An ever-more-polarized debate has continued to rage between two sides that simply may never get along ever again.

But enough about Gerrit Cole and Trevor Bauer.

Yes, now that the offseason has officially arrived, Yankees Universe is re-litigating the Bauer-Cole beef that supposedly dates back to their collegiate years at UCLA. With the fiery righty the only true long-term difference-maker on the free agent market, you have to wonder: If Cole wants to guarantee himself a ring or two over the next few years, does he decide to let bygones be bygones and give Bauer a call?

Luckily, we have some form of an answer to that question. Travel with us, if you will, to a world in which Cole and Bauer decided to hop on the phone this week in an attempt to settle their differences and talk things out.

We just so happen to have an exclusive transcript of that call in front of us today.

NOTE: This is a joke. This did not happen. This is ~parody~. We hope it happens, though! There’s still time for it to happen!

Gerrit Cole takes one final deep breath before scrolling through his contacts and selecting, “TREVOR B — DO NOT CALL, ANGRY/WEIRD”. After looking over at his wife Amy and getting one more telling eye roll, he places the call. Following two rings, Bauer answers, with a Ben Shapiro rant playing in the background.

BAUER: “…Gerrit? Is…is it really you, dude?”

COLE: “Yeah, yeah … flip phone died, so I finally transferred the contacts. You good?”

TB: “Yeah, man, just going through the whole free agency thing. Shame they don’t let you sign three-month contracts. I might get bored by the All-Star break again, you know?”

GC: “Yeah, no, I don’t know. Got eight more years with the Yankees, and we’re very happy here.”

A brief moment of silence.

GC: “We’re getting Luis Severino back around July and stuff, which is pretty cool.”

TB: “Yeah, yeah, that is pretty cool. And you’ve got, like, tons of other guys who can start until then. Just, like, an overwhelming amount of … depth there … (Bauer giggles) sorry, man, couldn’t get through that with a straight face.”

GC: “Yeah, we believe in Deivi, you know? And Clarke Schmidt is nasty. They’re good kids. And they’ll be helped out a lot by Gary Sanchez behind the pla–(Cole starts laughing) OK, now you got me doing it.”

TB: “This is great, man. Jokes and stuff. This is just like old times, before … you know …”

GC: “Yeah, I wanted to talk about that. Look, I shouldn’t have made fun of your warmups. 10 counter-clockwise lunges per inhale sounds … insane, but clearly it works. And I … I feel like I was on the wrong side of history for that thing at Kappa Sig, too. That was clearly your Jungle Juice. I don’t know why I let Garrett Spitts take a sip.”

TB: “Honestly? You didn’t have to say that, dude. That’s very kind of you. I owe you kind of a big one, too. I never should’ve borrowed your longboard over Columbus Day Weekend and then told you Russell Westbrook did it.”

GC: “It’s called Indigenous Peoples’ Day now, Trevor.”

TB: “Also my bad.”

GC: “I was nervous about getting on the horn with you again –”

TB: “Because you’re such a monster dork?”

GC: “–yes. But this was actually pretty great. I’m not saying we have room in our budget for any kind of one-year, $30 million deal or anything–”

TB: “$35 million minimum.”

GC: “Christ, really? OK. But if you do decide you’re into it, give LeMahieu a call in the next couple weeks and see if you can align on the figures and stuff.”

TB: “DJ and I have been texting, he says he might play for free just for fun.”

GC: “What a delightful little robot weirdo that guy is. OK, well, sorry to drone on — whoops, my bad, man, seriously didn’t mean to bring up a sore spot there.”

TB: “Water under the bridge. I really en-Choi’d this — I mean, enjoyed. Sorry, slip of the tongue, I know Ji-Man makes you skittish.”

GC: “No biggie, I’m … I’m sure that was an accident, too. Well … keep in touch if you have any other questions. The Steinbrenners are great with time off, if you ever need to take a day to blow off steam and Twitch stream yourself yelling at CNN or something.”

TB: “Thanks, man. That really means a lot.”

Pause. 

TB: “I’m gonna beat your average annual salary if it’s the last thing I do.”

GC: “No, no, no, come on–”

Bauer hangs up. Cole sits in silence for a few seconds.

AMY COLE: “How was it?”

GC: “Yeah, he’s totally gonna be a Met.”

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