Reds sign Brandon Phillips to six-year $72.5 million contract extension

Brandon Phillips will be a Cincinnati Red for life.

No, Cincinnati’s ownership group has not lost their minds. They’re simply doing what championship caliber organizations do day in and day out. And we applaud them for taking one of the most important steps there is to keeping the band together for a good long while.

I often sat back and thought about what I was going to write about–what would my post even say–the day that Brandon Phillips left town. Aside from Jay Bruce, there’s no Cincinnati Reds player I have more man-love for. Phillips is the heart and soul of the organization I love, and he’s everything the game of baseball should be about. Fortunately for me, I don’t think I’m ever going to need to write a Brandon Phillips farewell post like I’ve had to do with guys like Josh Hamilton and Adam Dunn. And that’s good, because it would have been much too painful.

Brandon Phillips–DatDudeBP–is one of the best all around guys in baseball. His contributions go beyond his WAR or his slugging percentage or how many gold gloves he wins. You put Brandon Phillips on the field 150 times a year, and fans are going to want to show up to watch this friendly fellow who creates a game within the game (I’ve seen Phillips field ground balls between his legs, etc.) just to keep himself fully entertained with this game he enjoys playing so much.

If Phillips, Bruce, or Joey Votto were playing in the Boston, New York, Los Angeles, or even a Chicago market; they never leave town. I say good for Castellini and company for not allowing it to happen here. Anything in line with making us a winning organization–isn’t that what Castellini told us all along he was interested in doing? Isn’t that why we all flamed past ownership groups when they did not? Everyone should be thrilled about these contracts.

I’ll take this core and whatever results come with them, and the assurance that they’ll be our nucleus over a group of new faces that we hope will work out. I’m thrilled with the Reds movement to keep their cornerstones in place and I think they have provided a large amount of their fan base with what they’ve always wanted by keeping Phillips in town until 2017.