Loading ...I am a huge fan of Marty Brennaman. With the possible exception of Vin Scully, I’ve never heard anyone who could describe a baseball game like Marty can.
Of course, sometimes he has to open his mouth and say something really dumb. He just can’t help himself.
He’s a disgrace.
I agree 110 percent with Marty. He could tone down the contentious crap, though.
I’d think Adam Dunn would have done just fine driving in runs in the middle of the Big Red Machine.
If you put Pete Rose and Joe Morgan batting in front of him and Johnny Bench behind him he would have probably have driven in 125+ RBI quite a few years. The Reds of the last few years would have won ALOT more games if they would have had one guy like that up front who could consistently get on base like those guys, let alone two.
I’m sure the last few seasons of losing especially and now without Joe have took a bit of the fun out for Marty.
Dunn put in 150 games a year for five years with solid production and you generally got what was expected. He never really improved beyond that, which may be the sad point.
AD will probably be the dude to sign with Washington and put up another three or four more years about the same on a club that is a bottom feeder.
I’m hoping the Reds are going the other way, as it looks that we have the building blocks for a real pitching staff for the first time in years.
“Today Marty, without the calming influence of his longtime broadcast partner Joe Nuxhall in the booth, seems bitter and, at times, irrational. His pronouncements often need to be taken with a heavy dose of salt.”
This may be the truest quote, unfortunately, in the whole article.
I agree that Marty can be one of the finest play by play guys there is. I grew up listening to him and as I was stationed in other parts of the country I realized how truly good he is. But he can be so incredibly bitter over some things that it detracts from what he naturally does so well.
Agree with Earl. If the Reds had anyone else who could get on base as consistently as Adam Dunn, then Dunn would have more RBI, and if the Reds had coveted pitching like they coveted 5-tool outfielders from 1992-2003, then maybe we wouldn’t be talking about so-and-so many consecutive losing seasons.
It ain’t Dunn’s fault the Reds have sucked since 2001. But I lay a ton of blame on Marty for encouraging the crushing negativity and ill-informed nonsense that so many Reds fans just can’t overcome. I used to love listening to him, but he’s a horrible announcer when the team is losing. I don’t expect him to blow sunshine up my arse, but good grief. If he would direct even a tiny percentage of his problem with Adam Dunn toward, say, a front office who sits on its hands while season after season goes into the crapper…well things would certainly be easier to listen to every summer evening.
How someone could watch as much baseball as Marty and be so clueless just baffles me.
He’s become nothing more than a bitter old man that should have stepped down years ago, and the biggest problem is that his supposed popularity have led the Reds to hire Marty clones (Thom and Brantley).
But I’m not saying that the opposite is true either, go opposite and you end up with George Grande; who never saw a major league player who was average.
I like Marty a lot. I like that he’s frank and I like that he doesn’t try to hide from his opinions. You want objectivity, go watch a national broadcast on Fox. He speaks passionately about a team he loves. He is just like us…he wants a winner and he’s pissed off that they’ve been bad for so long.
I like that Marty has an opinion and sticks to it. They may be misguided and they may be flat out wrong, but he makes no apologies for the way he feels and I respect him on that.
I don’t want guys like the Tribune hires to sugar coat things and tell their ballplayers that they are great when they suck. I like Marty and I want him around for a while.
Being hard-headed in the face of mountains of evidence is not “sticking to it.” It’s being foolish.
Marty’s right.
Statistics do not count. Only winning counts.
In the end, no one will remember Adam Dunn’s tenure with the Reds as anything but an anecdote. The Reds sucked hard with Dunn, and people will remember the string of under .500 seasons.
Dunn had shiny numbers but he was ill suited to be a team’s star hitter. If Griffey had been more than a shadow of himself, if Austin Kearns had panned out, or if the Reds had had any true star offensive player around him, Dunn’s weaknesses would not have been so glaring.
Statistics do not count. Only winning counts.
Wow. Brilliant.
NickP – I’m not saying his opinion are right and yes, he should be less hard headed when listening to other opinions. All I’m saying is that I like Marty’s passion for the team and the fact that he has an opinion without waffleing or pandering to the people he’s broadcasting to.
If he’s got an opinion that you don’t agree with, so what? Its an *opinion*. They are what make for interesting discussions. Would you enjoy coming on here and reading everyone say exactly the same things and agreeing with each other on everything? No, we like to debate and play sides and post our opinions. It’s what makes it interesting.
I don’t mean to question the depth of baseball knowledge anyone here has, but Marty’s probably forgotten more about baseball than most of us will ever know. If you don’t like his opinions turn him off.
Marty, like a lot of people who watched baseball through the 1970s and 1980s, misses a style of playing that was a lot of fun to watch but doesn’t really exist anymore.
It’s remarkable how differently hitters seemed to approach at-bats when you watch clips of old games (which I hope the MLB Network offers lots and lots of). They truly were “manufacturing” runs, slapping the ball around the infield, over fielders’ heads, into the gaps created by defensive alignments, taking fewer pitches, etc.
Hitting for the past 10-15 years has become more of a one-on-one matchup between the batter and the pitcher than the pinball style that thrived on Astroturf. With sluggers up and down today’s batting orders, walks are slightly more valuable and strikeouts less harmful than they used to be. (Indeed, with dudes like Adam Dunn clogging the bases, a strikeout is less likely to produce a double play.)
Interestingly enough, drug testing has increased the value of speedier, more athletic players, so maybe Marty will get another chance to call the sort of games he likes to watch.
“In the end, no one will remember Adam Dunn’s tenure with the Reds as anything but an anecdote. The Reds sucked hard with Dunn, and people will remember the string of under .500 seasons. Dunn had shiny numbers but he was ill suited to be a team’s star hitter.”
You must have only watched the half innings when the Reds were batting. Their pitching has been horrendous throughout Dunn’s tenure. Put today’s rotation with the 2005 team’s offense, and the Reds are in the playoffs. That’s how Dunn’s time in Cincinnati will be remembered. Poor pitching.
The caller should have brought up OTHER players OBP, not Adam Dunn’s. Dunn’s lack of run production has been a result of a lack of opportunities. People on base when he bats. Dunn is typically 2nd in at-bats, 2nd only to the Reds leadoff hitter, in leading off an inning when he bats 5th in the order.
During the season, I looked at Dunn vs. Howard and their RBI opportunities. In 2007 Dunn hit 40 HR and 106RBI in 632 PA’s. Howard hit 47 HR and 136 RBI in 648 PA’s, about 2.5% more PA’s than Dunns despite playing in 8 fewer games.
57% of Howard’s PAs came with runners on
48% of Dunn’s PAs came with runners on
Howard batted with a runner on 3rd base 97 times compared to Dunn’s 72.
Howard had 276 RISP compared to Dunn’s 217.
I haven’t gone back and completed a look at 2008, but at the time I did it (Aug 4) Dunn only had 39% of his PAs with runners on.
How do you post big RBI numbers if you at the plate with the bases empty so often?
Don’t be snarky, RagTag. The Reds were losers with Dunn. No amount of chanting about stats is going to change that.
Someone decided that the money needed to keep Dunn was better spent elsewhere. That’s a judgement call. We can agree or disagree with it, but it’s pointless to juggle numbers in an effort to prove it wrong.
The truth here is that offensive players who rise to Dunn’s salary level after 5-7 years with the Reds are almost always going to be sent elsewhere.
I’m over Marty. He’s a joke.
Sheish. It’s unbelievable how illogical people are about Dunn. Just because the Reds were losers every year with Dunn does not mean it was Dunn’s fault. Why people fail to see this is beyond me.
And “stats don’t count, winning does”? Absurd. I understand your point but you don’t win without players that are productive, and the best and really only true way to measure productivity is with stats.
“Put today’s rotation with the 2005 team’s offense, and the Reds are in the playoffs.”
Probably win the World Series,
Every time I read here “The Reds were losers with Dunn” I ask about Aaron Harang. No one has responded yet.
Please opine if the Reds should also get rid of Harang because this team hasn’t won with him either. He’s been with the Reds for five and a half years.
Per14, you’re reversing the argument. Of course, it wasn’t Dunn’s fault that the Reds lost when he was here.
The point is that someone decided that keeping Dunn would cost more than he would be worth to the team. When you agree to a player’s salary, it isn’t a decision about how much one player gets paid. It’s a decision that says that amount of money will not be available elsewhere. In those circumstances, I don’t believe a player’s stats take precedence.
I don’t think the Reds can afford to keep non-pitchers who reach Dunn’s salary. I don’t think they should unless they find a way to significantly increase the payroll. We just need to get used to young players pricing themselves out of Cincinnati.
GregD: Read closer. I said “offensive” players. The Reds stand a better chance of winning occasionally by concentrating on developing and maintaining a superior pitching staff. A mediocre or inadequate pitching staff won’t win unless they are supported by offensive players of the caliber of the Big Red Machine. We all know that’s not happening again, anywhere. But a team with a superior staff and mediocre offensive capability can win.
justcorbly, your argument (which I still disagree with), is quite different than Marty’s, which consisted of “lalalalalala I can’t hear you when you talk about OBP lalalalalala.”
Josh at #13 said: “If he’s got an opinion that you don’t agree with, so what? Its an *opinion*. They are what make for interesting discussions. Would you enjoy coming on here and reading everyone say exactly the same things and agreeing with each other on everything? No, we like to debate and play sides and post our opinions. It’s what makes it interesting.”
Actually, I’ll take issue with that. Marty has a bazillion watts of broadcasting power for his opinions, and he can pretty much say anything he wants and mouth breathers will agree with him because he’s Marty. Rather than having a rational discussion, he hung up on a guy who disagreed with him. That’s not interesting, except to point out how foolish Marty is. They do this on WLW all the time — when a caller makes a good point or calls them on their BS, they get disconnected, get cut off mid-sentence, or the like. No one can disagree with a host on talk radio. They control the argument. They control the message. Even if it’s wrong.
That’s why I like these fan blogs. You can voice your opinion and discuss things with others, and no one hangs up on you. Especially when you have a point.
justcorbly, I agree with you to an extent — I said above that they should’ve coveted pitching like they coveted 5-tool outfielders for more than a decade. However, all the pitching in the world won’t help when you can’t/won’t pony up the money to put some offense on the field. Watch this year’s team for an example.
And spending on pitching (Milton) can be just as stupid as spending on hitting. Hitters, of course, are more stable and predictable than pitchers. That can weigh both ways, but IMO it means “don’t make significant investments in pitchers, because all but a half dozen of them are likely to have a turd year or injury during their 3-year contract.”
Well, I never said baseball management usually makes the right decisions. (I think they’re typically not too bright.) The Milton deal is a prime example. In general, You’re taking a risk when you bring in a new player by signing them to a costly multi-year contract before they’ve proven themselves wearing your uniform.
As a general principle, though, I believe small market teams like Cincinnati should give first priority to pitching. It’s easier to win with pitchers who give up 4 runs or fewer and a mediocre (not nonexistent) offense than it is to win with bad pitching and an offense that can score 6 runs per game, because that bad pitching staff will more often than not find a way for the opposition to score more than 6 runs.
Teams like the Reds have to pick and choose how they spend their money. They can’t sign any player to a $180 million deal like the Yankees did today. Every dollar spent on one player is a dollar not spent on other players.
I’ve been a Reds fan for a long time. For almost all that time, their offense was been much better than their pitching. With the exception of the mid-1970’s, that didn’t work very well.
Remember, I”m talking about mediocre, as in middling, offense. That means avoiding the ephemera that have on occasion taken the field the last couple of years.
Chirs, that true. Stuff happens. Kid pitchers trying to prove themselves stay quiet about injuries, which then get worse. Managers take chances by pushing pitchers over the limit.
But, the surest way to lose a baseball game is to put a bad pitcher on the mound.
Justcorbly,
We’re really in agreement on what you’re saying. I would haven’t paid Dunn 15 million or so either But I think he was a very valuable player and it’s really plain ignorance to make the “well, the Reds aren’t winning with Dunn so let’s get rid of him” or “Dunn isn’t worth big money because he only drives in 100 RBIs” arguments. And, I’m not saying you are ignorant, but a lot of people make those arguments (like Marty). I agree “only winning” counts, but to win, you have to have the right players, and the only real way to know whether you have the right players is to study their past performance, i.e., their stats.