KENT, Wash. — Trevor Bauer is the son of a chemical engineer. Those are the genes he inherited. An engineer, Bauer explained, will consider a problem, develop a process to solve it, then implement, evaluate and adjust until finding a solution. Nothing is untrainable.
Bauer did not want to be a chemical engineer, though. He wanted to be, and still wants to be, the best pitcher in baseball. He succeeded on the mound as a boy in California, yet his peers who threw harder, even by a little bit, made the best travel teams and attracted more attention.