Reds TV Production: F-Plus

Some of the announcers the Reds employ do not act as promoters of the team, it seems they feel their job is to be the team's harshest critics. A confession: I watch most games the sound completely off. The "analysis" heard in the chunks I did turn up don't make me anxious to start listening anytime soon.

Jeff Brantley was one of my favorite players with the mid-90s Reds. From the curly mullet streaming from the back of his hat, to the "warming up by throwing his glove" routine, to the exaggerated fist pump after every save, the JB experience was throughly enjoyable. It pains me to say what I'm about to say, but here goes.

I would say I have a decent amount of experience listening to baseball play-by-play. I'm 26 years old and I've been watching games since I was about seven. I have never heard a broadcaster bash any player to the degree to which Brantley bashed this team tonight. People that regularly listened to him last year may say it was par for the course, and I remember last year's criticism of Todd Coffey making the paper at one point. That makes his commentary even more outrageous. How Bob Castellini could pay him to say things that will only make people actively dislike players on the team he owns, I don't know.

Yes, Todd Coffey had his struggles last year, and he had a bad inning tonight. But Brantley's "back in my day if I gave up a hit to a pitcher I'd kill somebody" routine was embarassing. Does he think Coffey was happy he gave up a sac fly to Dan Haren? He bashed Coffey for throwing an 0-2 breaking ball and letting him drive in the run, but does he know that was necessarily Coffey's decision? He similarly bashed Arroyo for giving up a double to Haren in the fifth. Seriously, does he believe all Reds pitchers call their own pitches? Is the onus entirely on the pitcher when he makes a mistake? Did Brantley himself never make a mistake? I recall Brantley being a solid closer for a few years, before injuries, but I also remember many of those saves being an adventure. He constantly seemed to get himself into jams. It kind of made him more endearing at the time, but remembering that makes his "I am Mr. Baseball, and everything this team does is ridiculously shoddy" routine even more irritating than it would be if it were coming from Marty.

While it was nice seeing Dunn go the other way in the bottom of the ninth to put himself on and setting the table for Encarnacion, Brantley's comments immediately afterward were a little confusing. It was something to the effect of "See, if more guys would stop swinging for themselves, and start swinging for the team, they would have a much better chance of contending."

First off, what, exactly, does that mean? Swinging for themselves? Has anyone, in the first two games, been noticably swinging for the fences every pitch? Is that what "swinging for yourself" means? And if so, what should they be doing? "Get 'em on, get 'em over, get 'em in" is George Grande's gimmick, and he shouldn't be messing with it. I suspect that may be what he means. "More guys need to concentrate on hitting behind the runner, hitting sacrifice flies and doing the little things right." Commentary like this is just justifying the status quo in the mind of Reds fans who call the Banana Phone, believe what the broadcasters say is gospel, and, bless their hearts, just don't know any better.

Is two games even enough to come to any conclusion as far as who is swinging in what way? We're talking about eight at-bats here. And even if he believes there are guys swinging for themselves, that comment leaves too much open to interpretation. If he is trying to imply there are members of the team that are selfish, he should be man enough to call them out. Making cryptic insinuations that "certain people" are swinging the bat selfishly (whatever that means) just leaves everything to the viewer's imagination. If you're going to criticize someone in particular or several players on the team, be man enough to say it. He was certainly man enough to continually bash pitch selection for Arroyo and Todd Coffey.

Also he was certainly man enough to call out Edwin Encarnacion so badly it made my ears bleed. His blabberings of "he's not a clutch player, he just isn't" immediately before the game-winning homer made for one of the greatest crow-eating moments of our lifetime.. and the payoff was immediate. It was beautiful. The words were barely out of his mouth before the ball was deposited into the left-field stands and it was over. But it's concepts and ideas like that, just thrown out there on such a public forum (the only source so many Reds fans have for even formulating opinions on the team) that are very dangerous. There were no numbers used to justify this opinion of his, nothing concrete cited, just (likely) a couple of throwing errors early this year, paired with a "sense" he has from "watching him play every day," something that I have never done and therefore have no right to comment on. Never mind that Brantley didn't even work for the team until last season, a year that I watched most of on cable here. I never played the game, so "I just don't know."

We should stop a minute and throw out what he actually said and what player he was talking about and consider the situation here. The Reds employ this man to do analysis for their games, and he's just going out and bashing players? You don't hear national broadcasters doing that. I have Extra Innings, and you don't hear other teams' announcers doing that. You hear the Reds announcers after hearing other teams and you think, "what is their problem?" The TV broadcasts are the Reds' best tool to advertise their product. I'm not saying the broadcasters should be pitchmen, but could they at least hold off on bashing players?

The main concern here is that what they say colors fan opinion to such a great extent. Look at Adam Dunn; any other city would love to have him. He should be a hero. Half the Reds fanbase wants to run him out of town because of Marty Brenneman. A team of Dunns will beat a team of Freels and Hoppers every day of the week.. but Joe Redsfan likes a guy who always has dirt on his pants. Give me a break. When you have the broadcasters reinforcing outdated concepts like "who is clutch" and "BA with RISP" and "Patterson's steals went up and homers went down in Baltimore and that was a good thing" (Thom Brenneman said that tonight! Swear to God! That's what got Patterson run out of Baltimore, but it's a good thing!) it really makes me fear for the future of this franchise, because if someone in power is listening to this, it might take another sale of the team to turn things around, and Lord knows how long it will be before that happens.

One more thing about the television.. this is a minor complaint, but the "Dusty looks mad" reaction shots are going to get old really quickly. I think having a stonefaced manager like Narron/Boone/Mackanin/Miley is preferable to seeing Dusty looking all mad after Adam Dunn takes a very borderline pitch for strike three. This team needs less Freels, or at worst the same amount of Freels (sorry to pick on Freel, but the "scrappy" Freel/Eckstein type doesn't singlehandedly win championships, he is a complementary piece to an already-good team, not a centerpiece or a key cog) and more Dunns, not a bunch of people getting mad about Adam Dunn doing Adam Dunn stuff. Somehow it would have been preferable for him to weakly tap out to second than strike out looking? If that pitch were called a ball it would have been a man on first, if he'd swung it would have been an out for sure. How is taking that a bad thing? But no, every time something happens, let's show Dusty looking all mad. He's so scrappy.