Tag: braves

Happy Trails, Bobby

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

ESPN: Legendary Braves manager, Bobby Cox, passes away at the age of 84

As the years passed, long after his retirement in 2010, occasionally I did have the thought of this eventuality, when Bobby Cox would one day leave us; usually whenever he’d pop up sporadically throughout the years, be it as the novelty guest manager for an exhibition game, or just appearing at the ballpark for some special occasion.  But Bobby Cox was no exception to the rule of Father Time, and as his age continued to rise, it was always a matter of when and not if, and curiosity on how the sports world would receive the sad news.

And now, that hypothetical has become reality, and at the age of 84, Bobby Cox has sadly passed away, leaving a void in the hearts of Braves fans, and to varying degrees, fans of baseball, fans of sport, and the people of Atlanta who had a modicum of local pride to the Braves that repped them.

Naturally, I am very sad to hear this as well, at 84, it can’t be said that it was too soon, and he lived quite the full life, but still it’s sad to hear that ‘ol Bobby has finally left the party.  In a way, he was kind of like everyone’s dad, who grew up watching the Braves, and not just to the players themselves. 

I’m not going to wax too much poetic and recite a lot of the same statistics and career numbers that anyone can read about on the countless other obituaries that are already posted all over the internet, but I was always amused at the fact that he had been ejected from nearly an entire regular season’s worth of games (158).  Although I definitely recall a few times where he trudged out of the dugout to get in the face of an umpire, what I always remembered more were the times where TV cameras and mics don’t necessarily pick up what he’s saying, but we just see the umpire react and throw out his finger and send Bobby off, without anyone but commentators really knowing what was being said.

But that’s what Bobby did, he got his ass tossed out of games, always in defense of his boys.  He was this totem of steady respect and support, and I like to imagine Braves fans everywhere wished for the levels of support and sticking up for his team from their own parents as Bobby did for his players throughout his entire career, and imagined how much better life could be if they did.

What was always amazing to me was how Bobby Cox seemed to be immune to the criticism, from even the most staunch and stubborn of newer baseball fans who prioritized statistics and analysis over the old school, touch-and-feel managing style that Bobby Cox exercised, and what made Bobby, Bobby.  Sure, there would be some grumblings of critique over some of his old school game tactics, but at the same time, nobody would complain when he’d get a feeling, and suddenly Brooks Conrad is hitting a pinch-hit home run of the go-ahead variety and the Braves would win a nailbiter.

I think one of my favorite memories of Bobby was when it was somewhere in between 2011 and 2013, but he would emerge out of retirement at the end of most Spring Trainings, and he would manage the Braves’ minor league all-stars for an exhibition game against the final 25-man Atlanta Braves roster, usually at the home of one of their affiliates.  There was one year, where the game took place in sleepy small Rome, Georgia, and the Bobby Cox-led minor league Baby Braves ended up stomping the Jesus out of the Atlanta Braves by like a score of like 10-3.

Every year, I’d always make jokes about how whether it was at these exhibition games, or whenever Bobby showed up to the ballpark, about the umpires should single him out and eject him from the premises, just for old time’s sake, and every time I’d make the joke, it would get avalanches of likes and thumbs ups from the masses, and it always brought me comfort that others shared the same humor and got the joke.

Either way, it is truly a sad, sad day in Atlanta and the baseball landscape, that Bobby Cox has passed.  No hyperbole, the man was genuinely one of the greatest baseball managers in the history of the game, and Major League Baseball is in a position where tomorrow is not going to be a better day than the last because of the magnitude of the loss of one of its greatest alumni.

What’s crazy is that Bobby’s passing was just days after Ted Turner’s, because the two were very closely intertwined, between the former owner and the former manager-turned GM-turned back to manager.  Already, the morbid hypothesis has already been posed about the brutal rule of threes, and seeing as how one and two were Atlanta icons, those legends in my city need to be on high alert over the next coming days into weeks.

Fare thee well, Bobby Cox.  This one genuinely does hurt, and I’m sad to see that this day has finally become reality, and if this were a magic fairy tale baseball season, there’s no more better reason for the Braves to win it all, than, For Bobby, and what the hell, for Ted too.

Happy Trails, Ted

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

WABE: Ted Turner, unofficial godfather of the City of Atlanta, passes away at the age of 87

As a (for lack of a better term) Atlanta Braves fan, the passing of Ted Turner does mean something to me.  As a professional wrestling fan who witnessed the rise and eventual fall of World Championship Wrestling, the passing of Ted Turner does mean something to me.  As a resident of the Metro Atlanta area for over half of my life, the passing of Ted Turner does mean something to me.

Frankly, whether or not they were fans of the guy, not a fan, or just somewhere in the middle, I feel like it’s accurate to say that if you lived in the Metro Atlanta area, it’s kind of hard to say that Ted Turner, or more accurately, one of his endeavors didn’t affect you in some way, shape, or fashion.

I know that in today’s twisted, demented, politically charged state of America, Ted Turner equals CNN which equals information source for the filthy gross fake news Democrats which equals Ted Turner being trash to an unfortunate majority of the unwashed right-leaning troglodytes of the country, but I would wager that the life and business dealings of Uncle Ted affected even those shitheads in a positive way, whether he provided employment, entertainment, or through some of the many philanthropic endeavors he was a part of, and in spite of the fact that people these days tend to dislike those with wealth, I can’t really run off many scandalous and negative things about Ted Turner off the top of my head.

Personally, it’s one of those things that I never really thought about, as far as whether or not I was a fan of the guy or not.  In one hand, he has money and is rich therefore I should be inclined to lean towards disliking the man, but in the other hand, other than the day he decided to cede control over his own company and sell to AOL Time Warner, which ultimately killed WCW and made the Braves into the soulless corporation it is now, there’s really nothing that I found particularly offensive about the man.

The man put Braves baseball into the national spotlight, force-feeding the country through TBS, contributing almost entirely to why the Braves have such strong brand recognition and pockets of fandom throughout the entire country and beyond.  Ted Turner was one of the only people in the world to really go toe-to-toe with Vince McMahon and not only challenge him in the wrestling industry, but punch him and draw blood, before the pendulum would eventually swing in the other direction, but let the record show Ted Turner’s success.

And of course, like many who live in the Atlanta area, I too had my stint(s) with the Turner company, having worked for Cartoon Network for two of the more noteworthy years of my career, as well stints with Turner Sports as well as NCAA.com.  Many in Atlanta joke about how you can’t really say you’ve ever lived in Atlanta unless you’ve worked for some of the big dawgs of town, like Coca-Cola, Delta, The Home Depot, or Turner, and I remember the feeling of professional pride I had when I was issued my first @turner.com email address when I was brought into Cartoon Network.

Rich as he was, Ted Turner never seemed to be of that devilish, moustache-twirling kind of evil asshole as many rich white guys are often seen.  The man seemed to genuinely care about the City of Atlanta, and dumped tons of money into the arts, culture, city projects, and was always reliable to find a way to get his name on all sorts of charitable causes throughout the city.

Whenever I’d have friends in the car, it was night, and we were headed southbound towards Midtown, I’d always refer to the 17th Street bridge, going under it, and when you emerge and the Atlanta skyline is unveiled to your eyes, as the mouth of Ted Turner, because there’s just something about seeing all the high rises and lit up buildings as you emerge from underneath a bridge that always seems kind of magical when you see it.

I actually saw Ted Turner once, a long time ago, when I was at a Ted’s Montana Grill; naturally I saw a strikingly attractive older woman, but then right behind her was a man with white hair and a white moustache, and it dawned on me that it was Ted Turner.  I remember thinking, man, he’s way shorter than I thought he was, because whenever he was on television, he was always in his power suits and framed real tight to make him look like a massive, giant man, but in reality, Ted couldn’t have been more than like 5’8.  But all the same, for a rich guy that most snarky people would assume would be too good to eat amongst pleebs, even at a joint named after him, it was refreshing to see him actually at one of his own restaurant’s locations.

Unsurprising, there’s not really anything substantial about this post, but I guess what it really all sums up is that Ted Turner was Atlanta, and his passing really means something to Atlanta, whether or not people want to admit it, and I just wanted to share some not-negative words about a guy that had a lot of contributions to things that were important in my life, and that I appreciated who he was, and what he meant to the city I live in.

I love how the Nick Castellanos saga has given more exposure to Presidente beer since it was on Dexter

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A drive into deep left field by Castellanos: Phillies outfielder Nick Castellanos on the chopping block, attempts to get in front of a story of how his fallout in Philadelphia began, including specifying an incident where after being benched, he brought a Presidente (beer) into the dugout while criticizing the manager

Despite the fact that he landed on the Phillies and always seemed to drink the Kool-Aid and be one of those dudes that absolutely murdered the Braves, I’ve always kind of liked Nick Castellanos.  For all the silly reasons to like a player, like for many, it started with the whole meme of Castellanos blasting a home run in the middle of an announcer apologizing on air for making a homophobic remark, causing him to seamlessly segue out of his apology to report on the homer before easing right back into the apology. 

But then it became apparent that there seemed to be this hilariously coincidental tendency for Nick Castellanos to crank home runs out at awkward moments of announcing, leading to the whole meme of Bad Timing Nick Castellanos, and that’s really all I needed for him to land in my general good graces.

Anyway, as the story goes, in 2025, Nick Castellanos was pulled out of a game for lackadaisical effort, and he took so much offense to it, that, in his own admission, he had grabbed a beer out of the clubhouse and brought it back to the dugout where he was prepared to drink it in the middle of an active game while criticizing manager Rob Thomson’s leadership of the team.

This apparently fractured his position with the team, and with some dwindling performance, has made it really easy for the Phillies to want to cut him, despite the fact that they still owe him $20 million for the 2026 season, which they are responsible for, regardless of if he’s playing for the Phillies or not.

I’d love it if the Braves picked him up when the Phillies inevitably do release him, because he’d only cost the team $780K, with the Phils being on the hook for the remaining $19.25M, because he would provide some good depth for when inevitably Ronald Acuña, Jr. gets hurt again, and Castellanos could supply some power off the bench, but I wouldn’t bet money on the Braves getting him.

Regardless, anticipating some fallout for why the Phillies want to cut him so badly, Nick Castellanos took some time to hand write out a summary of the incident in Miami that seemed to be the beginning of the end for his time in Philadelphia, and as admirable it is that he wants to take accountability for his actions and control the narrative by admitting it first, one of the things that stuck out for me, was the oddly specific clarification that it wasn’t just any old beer he brought into the dugout to start criticizing Rob Thomson with, it was very specifically identified as a Presidente.              

I’ve had Presidente beer before, several times in fact.  There was one season of Dexter where just about every character was drinking it whenever there were any characters drinking beer, and the subliminal saturation of it did its job, and I grew curious about the brand, and when I happened to come across it, I didn’t hesitate to grab a sixer to see what all the fuss was about in Dexter.

It’s really not that great of a beer, but the connection to Dexter still made me like it.  And also being the baseball nerd I really used to be, the fact that it was a Dominican beer made me feel some connection to all the Latin players that populated the majority of the MLB.

Needless to say, the mention and inadvertent plugging of Presidente by Castellanos opened up that curiosity from the past, and I’m tickled that he clearly must be a fan of the brew to the point where he had to be very specific at mentioning that it was a Presidente that he brought to the dugout.

The Presidente brand must also be pretty amused, or a little mortified that they got such a generous free plug, because the reality is that they probably haven’t gotten this much advertising since that season of Dexter.  And because it’s coming from a player that I think positively of, it’s bringing that similar curiosity I had over ten years ago that if I were to come across a sixer or a forty of Presidente, I might have to pull the trigger.

I can’t ever be mad about Freddie Freeman

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Trust me, bro: Freddie Freeman becomes the only player in MLB history to have more than one walk-off homerun in the World Series.  That’s it.

When the day is over, I couldn’t give two shits over who wins the World Series.  Obviously, I would prefer it to be the Blue Jays, but as I’ve said before, the Dodgers are inevitable, and prior to the start of the series, I had flippantly predicted that it would be the Dodgers in five, and so far, my prediction is still in play.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto is pitching like a man possessed, with two straight complete games, playing like a man who was worth a $330M contract, and the golden boy Shohei Ohtani seems to have figured out playoff baseball, and over his last few games, has been hitting home runs in every single one and OPSing like 5.000 or so it feels.

Oh and make no mistake, the MLB media machine and all of its stage-six clingers are absolutely all the fuck over this Japanese invasion, and it’s getting to a point where I feel like I’m going to resent MLB so much I’d swear it off, by just how much weeb-worship they’re jizzing all over the internet like they’re watering a garden with a hose.  I get it, Yamamoto and Ohtani are playing phenomenally right now, but it’s not like nobody else in the history of Major League Baseball has ever caught fire in the midst of the playoffs and carried their teams to some hot streaks.

But MLB media has become more weeby than 76 anime conventions put together and they just can’t help themselves with how much spooging they’re doing over every little thing a Japanese player does, and there’s no length too great to stretch out in order to make all sorts of convoluted stats or combination of stats to fit the narrative that only Shohei Ohtani is the only person in history to accomplish, so they can cliché-ly end with “that’s it.”

Thankfully, last night was a reminder that there are stalwart baseball players in existence that aren’t from glorious Nippon, and that the Dodgers true captain is the one who bailed them out of an 18-inning purgatory with once again, calling game in the most dramatic of fashions, the walk-off home run.

Freddie Freeman became the ONLY PLAYER in MLB HISTORY to have multiple walk-off home runs in the World Series, now having done it in 2025 a year removed from when he walked off the Yankees last year. 

That’s it.

And I know that I’m rooting against the Dodgers just like the the vast majority of the world outside of Los Angeles and entire country of Japan, but there is no part of me that is capable of hating Freddie Freeman, even if he is on the team.  I am happy for his second walk-off homer in the World Series, and I’m happy for his family to have been able to witness him once again bail the entire team out and be Mr. Hero, the only one genuinely worthy of such, on a roster full of guys that MLB really wants to be Mr. Hero instead.

Despite the fact that he plays for the Dodgers, an act of heroism by Freddie Freeman, at least to me, is still kind of a big middle finger to MLB, their media machine and all Dodgers fans that overlook his own greatness because they’re all too busy drooling over Ohtani or Yamamoto or even Roki for no other reason than that they’re shiny Japanese imports.

Lest everyone forgets, Freddie, and Mookie Betts, were guys who had their own championship rings before last year, and knew how to win without a $1B payroll and malleable management to make a cultural shift to cater to players, and it’s not a far stretch to say that without their leadership and guidance, they wouldn’t have won last year, where Ohtani had to be carried across the finish line by Freddie Freeman who went gangbusters in mauling the Yankees all series long.

I still want the Dodgers to lose in the end, which doesn’t really seem like a likely possibility, but I’m at peace if Freddie Freeman snaps out of his general postseason underperformance, and it subsequently helps the Dodgers win, because like I said, it’s impossible for me to be mad about anything that Freddie Freeman does, because he’s just that good of a human being that even him playing on the most reviled of teams doesn’t change my appreciation of him one bit.

Good intentions, still kind of racist

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I saw this photograph of the Atlanta Falcons’ placekicker Koo Younghoe posing up with new Braves’ scrap-bin pickup Kim Ha-Seong where they did/were coerced into a jersey swap, my first reaction was that of a wince.

I understand what was going on, and I imagine both Koo and Kim were smart enough to just go with it for the sake of whitey and the rest of America; and as the title of this post says, I think most Koreans would probably get that the intentions of this obviously orchestrated connection were good, it still gives off a sense of ignorant microaggression, in my personal opinion.

It’s like there’s absolutely no chance that Koo Younghoe was planned in advance to happen to be at ScumTrust Truist Park on this particular day, even if the NFL season was right on the precipice of beginning.  If the Braves really wanted to tie into the start of the Falcons’ season, undoubtedly they would’ve gone after Michael Penix or any of their more popular skill position players, and not the placekicker, no matter how talented and generally likeable that Koo actually is. 

The choice to invite Koo to the ballpark stinks of white people exhibitionism, like when white people are trying to integrate a black person, gay person, or any other individual who classifies as not-straight white people, they go out of their way to dig out any other member of said demographic to help introduce them into the collective.  And I’m going to give benefit of the doubt that both Koo and Kim were aware of what was going on, but like I said, they’re probably smart enough to just go with it, as not to jeopardize their own careers by calling out bullshit when they see it.

I’d wager that Koo and Kim were amenable to each other during this forced interaction, and maybe they did become quick acquaintances from the connection.  Koo probably reinforced the likely things the white people on the Braves told Kim about life in Atlanta, about how Koreans are plentiful here, mostly the students around Georgia Tech, as well as Gwinnett County as a whole, and probably some recommendations on where to get some decent Korean food should Kim be jonesing for the flavors of the motherland.

But the thing is, Kim was born and raised in Korea, played ball in the KBO, and came to America barely five years ago.  Koo was born in Korea, but immigrated to America when he was 12; he went to high school, college and embarked on his NFL career all in America, and in spite of his origin, man has had plenty of time to more or less become a true American in terms of personality and quality of life. 

They really couldn’t be more different beyond their nationality of origin and the fact that they’re both professional athletes.  But that seemed to be good enough for the Braves to go out and invite Koo over to the ballpark to meet up with Kim, because, they’re both Korean, they probably already know each other, and their grandfathers probably had to have served together in the Korean War or some other bullshit assumption.

If the Braves were actually smart, they’d basically have just pointed Kim Ha-Seong straight to Jurickson Profar, since they were already familiar with each other, having been teammates on the Padres.  And they were tight enough to where they referred to themselves as Rush Hour, even as horribly racist as that name would be for a Korean and a black-skinned Venezuelan to compare themselves to Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, it’s the kind of unity that only comes from actual friendships.

I mean, maybe they did, and they’d already reunited, but they still wanted to introduce Kim to another Korean Atlanta professional athlete, just to show him that more of you chinks are here playing professional sports here after all.

Either way, as well-intentioned as the whole thing was, I’mma just go ahead and declare the thing, racist.  Not necessarily a malicious racist, but still racist all the same.

They wouldn’t do this with a new Dominican pickup, or a black pickup.  But seeing as how Kim is the first Korean Braves player since Jung Bong, they may as well be back to square one with interacting with Korean culture.  I definitely hope Kim stays, because I’ve been following his journey since he posted out of the KBO and made his way to MLB where he was absolutely excellent in his first few years with the Padres, and I genuinely feel the Braves got an absolute steal of a gem in their typical modus operandi of picking through other teams’ scraps, and I think both the Padres and the Rays gave up on him too preemptively, mostly on account of typical Korean disrespect, but I’m hoping he finds success in Atlanta and the Braves can actually have a Korean player that hangs around for more than a split second.

Hopefully, microaggressions like forcing Koreans to interact don’t shy his opinion too much, and he forces Braves Country to realize who the fuck he is, and is a part of the hopeful 2026 re-do of this cesspool of a 2025 season.

MLB Speedway Classic: great success not

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

FTW: MLB’s Speedway Classic at Bristol Motor Speedway featuring the Atlanta Braves vs. Cincinnati Reds turns out to be massive failure for attendees, sparking comparisons to Fyre Festival

There was a moment on Saturday with the weather being all wet and crappy, where I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be ownage if the Speedway Classic got rained on and the game couldn’t take place?

That’s always the inherent risk with an outdoor sport like baseball, and trying to coordinate a singular, special event game; the one absolute thing that cannot be controlled – the weather.  And almost if I prophesized the event, the weather did come into play at the Speedway Classic, and no matter how much MLB tried to stall, delay and wait out the weather, they only managed to get in a single inning of game in before they threw their hands up and suspended the game, proclaiming the game would be resumed the following day; on what was supposed to be a rare Sunday day off for the Braves and Reds, on account of them altering their schedules to accommodate a special event game.

So, owned.

To the fans in attendance who were probably hoping to watch the game, and either skip town and or make a trip of it on Sunday – also owned.

Television rights having to adjust for the unpredictable schedule change – owned.

However, all this ownage aside, on the ground level, as among the alleged 90,000+ attendees who descended onto Bristol Motor Speedway, hoping to be in attendance for a supposed special event of monumental proportions, there was apparently a whole lot more ownage, which as the angst and frustration grew, many were more than eager and willing to vent to the internet.

And as much as I’m the type of fan who loves baseball so much that I hate it, few things make me arrogantly smirk in satisfaction than whenever MLB fucks things up, which is precisely what happened with how they handle the ground operations at the Speedway Classic.

Most notably, the sheer lack of preparedness when it came to handling the event at the stadium level, with countless gripes about there being inadequate or not enough food available to attendees, primarily summed up by a photo montage of nachos without cheese and hot dogs without buns, with there being some very quick comparisons to the photo of a shitty sandwich that became the photographic embodiment of the notorious Fyre Festival shitshow.

Fans who aired out their frustration were immediately combatted by mostly people who weren’t there who for whatever reason feel the need to defend MLB, the event or venue, but it just leads to an absolute clusterfuck where nobody wins and people like me just want to sit back and watch the carnage like the Michael Jackson eating popcorn gif.

But aside from the debacles revolving around food, there were many allegations of them running out of food and merchandise all before the game even got under way, and lots of piling on to the flop of the logistics of an event scheduled well beyond a year ago, despite the fact that it was at a NASCAR venue which holds multiple races a year without breaking a sweat, and the general consensus that it’s massive egg on MLB’s face for such horrendous planning.

Frankly, I don’t even really know why MLB wanted to do this in the first place.  My guess is that it’s a veiled temperature check to see how the region supports MLB, because between Nashville and Raleigh, there’s always rumor about possible MLB expansion, with that general mid-Atlantic region being considered.  But also MLB doesn’t need any reasons for doing anything other than the fact that they’re greedy cocksuckers who are trying to make money by any means necessary, and holding special events seems like an easy cash grab, no matter how poorly they execute it because fans are gullible and easy to manipulate into forking over their dough.

Make no mistake, this was entirely MLB’s fault for such poor planning, and such poor execution.  And I love to see it, especially since I’m so far removed from my baseball fandom that I was nowhere remotely close to experiencing it.  Maybe a decade ago when I was still pretty hard into my fandom, I’d be tempted to be a part of it, but I’m really fucking glad that I’m where I’m at now, and had no interest in it.

And of course, the Braves won the game, in spite of them giving up a run in the one inning they played on Saturday.  Which kind of stinks from the standpoint of that the Braves will hold onto this meaningless win and inject as much meaning into it as possible amidst a horrendous season, and I don’t want them to have any wins to celebrate, because this team will never truly ever get better unless they hit a bottom that really makes them try to rethink the way they operate.

But whatever, massive lol’s on my end, for all the sheer amounts of ownage that was doled out over the weekend on account of MLB’s pathetic fuck ups.

Professional athlete problems

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Newsweek: Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder reveals having a very specific no-trade clause; refusing to go to the Yankees, Mets, Blue Jays, Dodgers, Giants or Padres

Call me naïve, but I’ve always had the belief that it’s probably in our best interests to not put our employability at any sort of disadvantage, by doing things like putting in legal writing, refusal to go work for specific employers.  I have a wife and kids, and when the day is over, my obligations is to provide and support and I don’t really think I’m above any particular task or duty in order to accomplish such. 

Sure, there are lots of things I’d rather not do, or places or companies that I’d probably hope to have a superior alternative to, but when push comes to shove, I’ll shovel shit eight hours a day if it meant being able to provide for my family, and do my best to be the absolute best at it.

Then again, I am not a professional athlete, paid exorbitant amounts of money to play sports originating from children’s games.  I have not lost touch with poverty, living paycheck to paycheck, and the constant vigilance of every penny spent.

I am not Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder, Bryan Reynolds, who for whatever reason is very adamant about not wanting to play for a specific list of teams, effectively implying to 1/5 of Major League Baseball that he’d rather be unemployed than play for any of them.  Which to someone like me, is mind-blowing that any player would have no-trade clauses in the first place, because unless they’re true MVP-caliber talent (which Reynolds is not), they’re not going to be endearing themselves to organizations by being inflexible.

What the internet is fascinated by is the list of teams; typically lots of guys who have had no-trade clauses in the past, they typically tend to list off teams generally perceived negatively by the masses; be it that they’re cheap teams, not good teams, in smaller markets, or any combination of the above.  After all, professional athletes play to win, to make money, enjoy their lives, or, any combination of the above.

But the teams Reynolds listed: the Yankees, Mets, Blue Jays, Dodgers, Giants and Padres – very few of the negatives really apply to them, and very much of the positives do.  Currently, all of them are either division leaders or are very much in the postseason picture, and they’re all squads based out of major New York and California markets or Toronto.  All of these teams are very liberal with their spending and all have budgets north of the median MLB payroll.

The immediate joke was that Bryan Reynolds has no actual desire to win, or be a part of a championship squad, seeing as how he plays for the perpetually middling Pittsburgh Pirates, and seems to only refuse to go to squads known for contending.  And the funniest thing is that when called out for such, by once-peers, Reynolds has gone out of his way to defend himself on the internet, validating the idea that he does in fact pay attention to the internet and what others might be saying about him, thus making him owned, but that’s beside the point.

Nerds on the internet were quick to point out that the list of teams Reynolds refuses accept trades to, correlates with high income tax rates, which New York and California do have, and Toronto being in Canada, is subject to massive taxation, which I guess does suck for an American paying Canadian taxes and getting no benefits for it.

However, Bryan Reynolds is a professional athlete, making professional athlete money, netting $12.25M this season and will continue to make more, over the next five years, as he signed an eight-year, $108M deal back in 2023.  Yes, it sucks to know that 40-50% of your income is immediately lost to Uncle Sam, but when the day is over, he’s still pulling in $6M+ a year after that motherfucker takes his pound of flesh.  

It’s hard to feel much empathy for any professional athlete making millions of dollars to play children’s games, and it’s extra puzzling how stingy it would be if income taxes really were the reason why he would block a trade to six of the upper tier of MLB franchises, where he would not only continue to make the contractually obligated millions he’s owed, but he could improve his general brand and parlay it into higher earning opportunities in stronger markets.

What’s funny to me however, is the fact that I don’t know if it’s ignorance or maybe he only does want to play for non-contending losers, but the Oakland Las Vegas Sacramento The A’s are not on his list.  The Dodgers, Padres and Giants being on it makes it sound like he’s avoiding California, but for the next three years, the A’s are still in the state, playing in a very fitting minor league ballpark, considering how the franchise is operated, and it would be hilarious if Bryan Reynolds were to get shipped out there, and his no-trade clause wouldn’t be able to prevent it from happening.  He would then be subject to California’s 13.3% income tax rate, and he’d be playing in a minor league ballpark, for a glorified minor league franchise.

Furthermore, I knew nothing about the guy before finding out about this story, but it’s interesting to deduce his journey through his statistics alone.  He debuted in 2019, had three well above average seasons with one injury-marred flop in the middle, but impressive enough to make the Pirates offer him a huge nine-figure deal to buy out his arbitration seasons and secure him for the next eight.  And in classic, got-the-bag player performance, he has two okay seasons but aren’t even close to the heights he reached in his 6.0 bWAR 2021 season, but apparently the man has fallen off a cliff in this 2025 season, already worth a horrendous -0.7 bWAR at the time I’m writing this.

He’s still going to be due nearly $75M over the next six seasons, and considering the downward trend he’s headed now, it’ll probably be the last big money he’s going to make in his career, so I suppose he should be trying his best to avoid getting shipped off to somewhere where nearly half of it is going to be assimilated by the IRS.

Either way, my final word on Bryan Reynolds is that man be dumb, blacklisting some of the richest and contending teams in the league.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with being in it just to make money, but me personally, anyone who doesn’t want to win while getting rich is missing something, and I’d rather them get the fuck out and make way for someone who wants everything including the bag.

When the Pirates do inevitably move him, because he still fits the mold of a good trade chip, I hope he gets shipped off to The A’s, Rockies, White Sox, Marlins or some other shitty mid franchise who have no desire to win.  To which, at this point in time, the Braves would actually be a club that might work with him, but here’s hoping that doesn’t happen, because I sure as fuck don’t want a dork like him.