Trevor Bauer didn’t draw anything close to the typical ban when MLB announced its ruling Friday. He received a virtual death penalty. 

He is the new SMU of Major League Baseball, the Tonya Harding, the Lance Armstrong. 

Only very likely less liked than any of those scoundrels. 

The 324-game suspension Bauer received from MLB on top of the 99 games he already has missed means in some sense he’s getting more than double the penalty of the previous players accused of domestic abuse who were deemed the worst before. 

Bauer was told Friday he can return after 2 1/2 years away from a major league field, into the 2024 season, when he will be 33 years old, late middle age by ballplayer standards and his estimable skills presumably have withered away to next to nothing. 

Barring a successful appeal, and an owner who doesn’t read the papers or respond to female fans, we may well have seen Bauer throw his final MLB pitch. 

Baseball was believed open to a somewhat lighter penalty, but Bauer’s position to date is that he deserves no ban. Accountability is seen a plus. If there is any. 

“I deny committing any violation of the league’s domestic violence and sexual assault policy,” Bauer said on Twitter. 

To draw this sort of ban, MLB has to think it has the goods on him, even beyond one woman’s ugly accusations of repeated sexual abuse and certainly beyond what was heard in two courts of law, where Bauer was judged not to have been proven to do anything criminal. The Washington Post has reported there was a second accuser. MLB did a 10-month investigation, and there’s nothing to conclude beyond commissioner Rob Manfred’s belief that Bauer doesn’t deserve much of a career anymore. 

Maybe Bauer has some sort of point, but we won’t know that until the appeals process plays out. His case will be heard by independent arbitrator, which is only fair. 

MLB made deals with domestic abusers in the past, but as we stand here today there is at least a 324-game gap in opinions, and maybe 423 if one throws in the games he already has missed. 

Bauer is a fighter off the field, too. He is suing The Athletic because he didn’t like their articles. He may sue MLB, too. 

As of today, more chance he ends up in a court of law than a Major League Baseball field. 

Even if Bauer prevails legally, does anyone really want him in their clubhouse? I know teams are desperate for pitching, especially high-end starters with elite stuff, and he is not a criminal in the eyes of the law. Yet, it’s still hard to imagine any team will take on such a despicable character. 

The Mets and Dodgers seriously battled for him only a couple of winters ago, and Steve Cohen is thanking his lucky stars every day that Bauer preferred to go home to LA after giving the Mets the idea he was probably coming to Queens. Word is, in only a half year in that Dodgers clubhouse, he managed to alienate many key players. 

Had he not been banned beyond the expiration date of his regrettable, $102 million contract, the Dodgers, conscious of public opinion and the world around Chavez Ravine, may well have cut him (they declined comment on that score, as has everyone in this case). As it stands, Dodgers people probably feel almost as lucky as Cohen does now. 

Even before this ugly episode of alleged abuse, we already knew Bauer was a reprehensible individual reviled by many past teammates. Gerrit Cole, his former rotation mate at UCLA, is the most public figure who has no use for Bauer, who always has taken the baseball expression “on his own program” to an extreme. 

Of course, being standoffish or even selfish does not draw the baseball death penalty. Even acting like a jerk does necessitate he sit out even one game — much less the rest of his career. 

But the combo of the accusations and the reputation sinks him in the court of public opinion. MLB gets only applause and plaudits for a call like this. Beyond his own statement, and that of a few amateur lawyers and professional trolls on Twitter, there was barely a word of support for one of baseball’s formerly good pitchers. 

His agent and lawyer both are abiding by the confidentiality agreement. It’s telling, though, that virtually no one else who knows him is stepping forward with an encouraging word for Bauer, or even a criticism of MLB, normally an easy target. MLB takes plenty of beanballs, but on this one it gets a standing O. 

“I am incredibly proud of MLB,” prominent female agent Lonnie Stewart said by phone. “I had prepared myself for disappointment. And it’s painful because it’s triggering. Many of us women in the game applaud baseball leadership today. Today, knowing we may never have to watch him on a mound playing the game we love is very satisfying.” 

MLB’s previous high penalty for domestic abuse was a season-long ban given to reliever Sam Dyson, who was accused of rape and battery in a lawsuit filed by his ex-girlfriend. Even Hector Olivera, who drew a jail term after being convicted in a court of law on a misdemeanor domestic assault charge, only got 81 games. 

MLB has taken the issue more seriously than other major sports, but the penalties seem to have grown harsher with the times. 

Though neither side is saying anything about the facts of the case, we have to assume there is more to the story — maybe more witnesses, maybe more females who say they were wronged by Bauer. 

The early belief is that MLB was much more impressed than the two courts by the testimony of the one young lady who alleged that Bauer abused her during a sexual encounter, humiliating her and hurting her. What she alleged was deemed not criminal, but it was heinous, even if a court didn’t think it even warranted the temporary restraining order against him. 

Outside a court of law, where standards are high, few could seriously defend what he was alleged to do. But a question now is whether those incidents with that young lady and whatever else was found warrant a virtual death penalty. 

The ban on its surface seems severe. But it’s probably the safest play MLB can make. And maybe the only play for this loathsome loser.