Marty Brennaman is at it again. Tonight during the Reds Hot Stove show on 700 WLW here in Cincinnati a calledr late in the show came on. He mentioned that writers, some local and national say that Joey Votto has a bad contract. That it’s hamstringing the team from making deals this offseason. The caller says that it’s not a bad deal, but it’s a bad deal for the Reds but it would be a great deal for 2/3rds of the teams in baseball. He is implying that the Reds simply aren’t willing to spend enough money to make that contract work for them (I’d disagree with this notion – assuming they return to spending $115+M).

Marty agrees with the caller that it’s a bad deal for the Reds. The caller then begins to talk about how good Joey Votto is and has been. That the going rate for someone like Votto is more than he’s getting here. At that point, Marty interrupts to point out that he believes if the Reds could do it again they’d never sign that deal. Then he starts on an epic rant that includes lines such as “Let’s get real here, he’s going to make $22M next year. $22M for God’s sake” and when the caller says “how many guys are going to make $22M next year that can’t do what he does? Just for laughs, look up all-time OPS stats”…. then it goes to another level.

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.

The caller is sort of chuckling in the background for that last sentence. He then says “OK, well Bryce Harper is probably going to make $30” when Marty jumps in and cuts him off with this:

I don’t give a DAMN (shouting it at this point) about Bryce Harper! You’re talking about Washington DC. Why don’t you bring up Mike Trout and Los Angeles? (caller chimes in with”well” before he’s interrupted again) We’re done with this Scott. We can argue all night long and you’re dead wrong. You’re never going to convince me this contract is a good contract.

If you’d like to listen to the entire Hot Stove League show, I’ve embedded it at the bottom of this article. To listen specifically to the Joey Votto portion, go to the 28-minute mark (literally the 28-minute mark).

I just can’t get over the anger and vitriol that Marty shows here. Not only has he continuously, for years and years, talked about Joey Votto as if he were only as good as say, Eugenio Suarez instead of being the best Reds hitter of all time (his 157 OPS+ is EASILY the best in Reds franchise history), but how he treated the caller, who while he was disagreeing with him wasn’t being abrasive or confrontational, was kind of crazy.

I’ll still never understand keeping Marty Brennaman around at this point. He almost constantly talks badly about the team (which I can understand to a point – they haven’t exactly performed well lately). I think he takes it a bit far when it comes to the players. But when it comes to Joey Votto, it’s just on a different level. There’s something seriously going on when it comes to Votto. Brennaman simply can’t not go out of his way to rip on him. And for what? Because of the amount of money he makes? Or is it because his teammates aren’t good enough to be on base enough so Votto can drive them in as often as he would like him to? Because the team stinks?

Newsflash about the whole “lose 94 with or without you” thing. Yeah, the Reds would lose 94 with or without him. The difference is, they’d lose a lot more than 94 without him. How miserable would Marty Brennamen be then? Who would he have to blame for the losing then? This is a man who poisons the Cincinnati Reds brand by the things that he says – and unfortunately, a large majority of the fanbase simply doesn’t know any better than to believe that he’s an expert on baseball. They buy everything he’s selling and he’s selling the best player the team has had in most of our lifetimes, if not all of our lifetimes, as overpaid and underperforming. Neither or those things are remotely close to true.

Update: They talked about this on Intentional Talk this afternoon. Look at Chris Rose when the rant is over. He literally can’t believe what he just heard.