Marty Brennaman went Apeshit about Joey Votto’s Contract Last week

So we are late to the party. Marty Brennaman went absolutely apeshit on a caller on 700 WLW (good American airwaves) who simply called in to discuss Joey Votto’s contract in a cordial manner.

In the equivalent of a manager throwing a man dining in the restaurant out of the place; a man who even compliments the meal, Marty doesn’t disappoint or mix words.

Time out here now. I’m not going to get into all that crap. I’m going to tell you this: If I were an owner of a baseball team I would say to him if I could trade him, I’d trade him yesterday. And I would say, hell I can lose 94 games without you just as easily as I could lose 94 games with you. I don’t care about the OPS. I don’t care about none of that. This team made a bad deal when they signed Joey Votto to a 10-year contract. And he’s gonna make $22M and either next year or the following year he’s going to make $25M. There’s NO sanity on God’s Earth that justifies this being a good contract.

Fuckin’ Marty. I both agree with him and disagree with him all in the same breath. There’s a better take on it over at Reds Minor Leagues that categorically goes against Marty’s rant.

Votto is the one guy who still puts buts in the seats. He’s a weird guy, but he’s going to retire as the greatest pure hitter in Reds history next to Pete Rose. He has an outside shot at being a Hall of Famer. He is valuable, and underpaid in terms of ‘WAR’ and WAR per dollar and all that happy horseshit.

He isn’t a great run producer but that’s a team-dependent stat. It’s not his fault that the Reds offered him a deal during a time they were ‘all-in’ and then the owner decided against his own promise not to ever firesale again and traded away the core of the team for nickels on the dollar.

Marty is right, they’re going to lose 90+ with or without Votto. Marty is wrong in the fact that Votto is overpaid, and I know he hates that Votto doesn’t do old school things like knock in 120 runs each year. Baseball has changed and that stat (along with saves, etc.) aren’t valued like they used to be. I get both sides! But I am an old school curmudgeon like Marty.

And I’m sorry this post was up so late. I should have had a take on it that day. I need an intern, or something.