Originally Posted by
FlightRick
Fine, let's compare franchises. The Brewers are committed to keeping their core intact, but are pretty much giving up on the recognizable face of their franchise because they know they can't afford him. And the Reds are a AAAA farm team, because they only have their face of the franchise under contract for 3 years.
I'll have to politely disagree with that assessment. The contract extensions of Bruce, Cueto, Hernandez, and Arroyo also disagree with you.
Compare the franchises, and I'd say they're on pretty even footing in terms of keeping talent in-house, with the exception of the fact that we have our star player locked in for 2 years longer than the Brewers. And if we have to let Votto go like the Brewers are letting Fielder go, it WILL NOT BE FOR A LACK OF TRYING.
That's what I was trying to get though with my post: if Votto could be had for 5yr/$105m, then of course we'd sign the extension. But I'm guessing that it'll take more like $7yr/$185m, and that's where you do have to take a step back and decide what's best for the franchise. Maybe in 2 years, the right move will be resigning him. Maybe it won't be. None of us can say for sure. But I'd like to think we'd agree that handing that to him today, just because of Ryan Braun, would be foolishness.
I'm not sure it diminishes the veracity of anything else I said. But I'm also willing to grant that I should have said "Braun is not an MVP, and may never be," instead of using "probably never will be." Anything is possible, but consider that there is only 1 MVP per year, and Braun only has 5, maybe 6, more shots at it before his skills are in decline.
Perhaps I left something unsaid in my first post: that I believe there's a very good chance that the Brewers just handed out a bad contract to Braun. He'll likely be getting overpaid the last 2-3 years of that contract, once he's on the wrong side of 35. Half or more of today's contract extension might be money down the toilet for the Brewers. To be clear: not "will," not "probably," but "might."
So to take it one step further: just because the Brewers handed out a bad contract today does not obligate the Reds to follow suit. The original poster suggested the Reds do exactly that with the questionable if/then statement, "If Brewers extend Braun at 5yr/$105m, then the Reds must do the same with Votto."
I'd love for Votto to be a lifelong Red as much as anyone here, but I was obligated to log my opinion about what I felt was a false equivalency...
Rick