Every day there are three things, here are those three things.
I took off the last three days from the sports opinion-slinging game. I hope you missed me. I'll guess you didn't.
1) Someone in Denver got played. This piece came out from a radio guy in Denver, reporting that the Broncos are "aggressively pursuing" a trade for Bengals backup QB AJ McCarron.
It was shot down by a number of people in Denver, and the reaction here was "meh."
Here's what I think happened.
The guy who wrote the piece got played.
There is, right now, little or no market for AJ McCarron. The Bengals missed chances to trade him when his value was at its highest, and no one wants to meet their (understandably) lofty asking price.
So they're trying to create a little buzz around him.
So someone with the Bengals reaches out to someone they have a relationship with in Denver. Is liberal with the fact - seven other teams are interested, Broncos are being aggressive - and for a few hours, at least, there's a little buzz about a guy they value, but not enough to one day make the starting quarterback.
The guy in Denver, working for a station that's increasing the heat on its guys to amp up web traffic, writes the piece. Twitter loses its mind for about 45 minutes. Denials are made. The Bengals come away looking like a team that's got a backup quarterback that teams want, and talk show hosts in both cities get free shows.
I might be wrong about this.
I don't think I am.
2) Joey Votto's 2017. There have been two good pieces this week on Joey Votto. This, from P-Doc, and then this from John Fay.
So Votto grinds on -- not giving away at-bats, putting up incredible numbers and hitting as well as he ever has. The thing about Votto’s numbers is it’s hard to pick out a few a to illustrate how good he is. Consider these (all entering Wednesday):
- His slash line (average/on-base/slugging) is better than his MVP year of 2010. He’s at .314/.439/.602 this year. He ended ’10 at .324/.424/.600.
- He’s hitting .487/.638/.848 with four home runs and 12 RBI on his current 13-game hitting streak.
- Over his last 162 games, he’s hitting .340/.446/.623 with 41 home runs and 121 RBI.
- He leads the National League in OPS (one-base plus slugging) at 1.041.
- In historical perspective, Votto has a higher batting average as a Red than Pete Rose (.314 to .307), a higher on-base percentage as a Red than Joe Morgan (.426 to .415) and a higher slugging percentage as a Red than George Foster (.541 to .514).
Joey Votto continues to excel, while the Reds continue to slog toward the finish line. Maybe the most unfortunate thing about the rebuild has been how three superb seasons from Votto have been essentially rendered useless by the team's overall struggles.
That said, it'd been really fun to watch Votto this season. And it's been fun to watch and listen as the few holdovers who would decry Votto's approach or focus almost solely on how much money he's making have at least quieted down, and in many cases come to express what most of us have known for a while...
Joey Votto is a remarkable baseball player.
Yup. Breaking new ground here.
3) Watch me. And four other people. For the last five days, I've barely checked my email, and essentially neglected some workplace responsibilities that I now need to catch up on, and I have two radio shows today.
This means that for today's third item, I will just post this, and ask you to watch, or DVR, this on WLWT-5 on Saturday night at 7:30.
A Seat At The Table features me, stand-up comedian Josh Sneed, Red Reporter blogger Brandon Kraeling, Marty Brennaman, and Tom Browning. It was immensely fun to be a part of, some fun stories were told, and I think you'll enjoy it if you're a baseball fan.
Channel 5. Saturday. 7:30. Here's a preview....