Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer has been suspended for 324 games -- two full seasons -- for violating the league's domestic violence policy, MLB announced on Friday.

The suspension is without pay and effective immediately. Bauer is appealing the suspension.

"In the strongest possible terms, I deny committing any violation of the league's domestic violence & sexual assault policy," Bauer said in a tweet. "I am appealing this action and expect to prevail. As we have throughout this process, my representatives & I respect the confidentiality of the proceedings."

Bauer, who has been on paid administrative leave since July 2, is not getting credited for those games missed. His suspension will last for the rest of 2022, all of 2023 and into the 2024 season.

Fifteen players have been suspended since Major League Baseball and the MLB Players' Association unveiled its joint domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse policy in August of 2015, which grants MLB commissioner Rob Manfred the autonomy to suspend players under "just cause." Those suspensions -- not counting former reliever Felipe Vazquez, who's serving a jail sentence for sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl -- have ranged from 15 to 162 games and were the result of negotiated settlements in which players waived their right to appeal.

Bauer joined the Dodgers in February of 2021 on an inventive short-term contract that would pay him up to $85 million over the course of two seasons, but he didn't pitch beyond June 28 of the first year.

The following day, a then-27-year-old San Diego woman filed a request for a domestic violence restraining order (DVRO) in which she detailed allegations that Bauer assaulted her over the course of two sexual encounters at his Pasadena, California, home in April and May. In her declaration, the woman -- whom ESPN has chosen not to name -- essentially claimed Bauer took consensual rough sex too far, alleging that he choked her unconscious on multiple occasions, repeatedly scratched and punched her throughout her body, sodomized her without consent and left her with injuries that warranted a trip to the emergency room.

Bauer and his attorneys, Jon Fetterolf and Rachel Luba, firmly denied the accusations throughout, calling them "fraudulent" and "baseless" in an initial statement. Bauer also filed suit against the woman earlier this week, claiming defamation and tortious interference while seeking unspecified monetary and punitive damages.

Bauer was initially placed on administrative leave -- a means by which players are paid their full salaries but are not allowed around major league facilities while investigations are ongoing -- on July 2. Five days later, the Dodgers cancelled Bauer's scheduled bobblehead night and removed his merchandise from its stores, stating that the team "did not feel it was appropriate while investigations continue."

At the conclusion of a four-day hearing on Aug. 19, L.A. Superior Court Judge Dianna Gould-Saltman dissolved the temporary restraining order, ruling that Bauer did not pose a continual threat to the woman and that her injuries were not the result of anything she verbally objected to before or during the encounter, pointing to texts from the woman in which she asked to be choked out.

The judge said the "injuries as shown in the photographs are terrible," but added: "If she set limits and he exceeded them, this case would've been clear. But she set limits without considering all the consequences, and respondent did not exceed limits that the petitioner set."

Days before the start of that hearing, the Washington Post published a story about a second woman, from Ohio, who sought a temporary restraining order against Bauer in June of 2020 and also accused him of assault. The woman dismissed the order six weeks later, after Bauer's attorneys threatened legal action, according to the report. The Post story included photographs showing injuries that were allegedly caused by Bauer, as well as threatening messages, one in which Bauer allegedly wrote: "I don't feel like spending time in jail for killing someone. And that's what would happen if I saw you again."

Bauer's attorneys called the woman's allegations of physical abuse "categorically false" and questioned the validity of the photos and messages.

The Pasadena Police Department concluded its investigation of Bauer's incident with the San Diego woman on Aug. 27, sending the case to the L.A. County District Attorney's Office, which spent the next five months reviewing the case before declaring on Feb. 8 that it would not pursue criminal charges. The District Attorney's Office considered and rejected charges of assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury and sodomy of an unconscious person during the first sexual encounter between Bauer and the woman on April 22, and domestic violence during the second sexual encounter on May 16.

As part of its declination, the District Attorney's Office wrote: "After a thorough review of all the available evidence, including the civil restraining order proceedings, witness statements and the physical evidence, the People are unable to prove the relevant charges beyond a reasonable doubt."

Bauer promptly released a seven-minute video on YouTube in which he outlined his version of events, at one point saying: "I never punched this woman in the face. I never punched her in the vagina. I never scratched her face. I never had anal sex with her, or sodomized her in any way. I never assaulted her in any way, at any time, and while we did have consensual rough sex, the disturbing acts and conduct that she described simply did not occur."

The woman, who provided photographs and medical records as part of her DVRO declaration, claimed she woke up the morning after the second sexual encounter with two black eyes, a swollen jaw and cheekbones, dark red scratches on the right side of her face, bruised gums, a lump on the side of her head, a split upper lip, black bruising over the top of her vagina and multiple bruises on her right butt cheek.

Over the last two months, while MLB continued its investigation, Bauer's lawyers filed defamation lawsuits against two media companies, claiming that Deadspin knowingly published false information in its coverage of the sexual assault allegations and that The Athletic led "a campaign to maliciously target and harass" Bauer.

Bauer's lawyers also subpoenaed the Pasadena Police Department for missing phone records from his accuser, claiming in a court filing that "the requested materials will further reveal Petitioner's plan to ruin Respondent's reputation and career and to earn a large paycheck by making false and misleading allegations in her Petition."

But Gould-Saltman ruled in an April 4 hearing that Bauer would not be privy to the phone records, stating that his attorneys did not file the proper motion and that she nonetheless would've been skeptical of an argument that the records would help them show she misled the legal process and must pay his attorneys' fees.