{"id":808328,"date":"2018-04-22T23:10:32","date_gmt":"2018-04-23T03:10:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesportsdaily.com\/?p=808328"},"modified":"2018-04-23T01:35:23","modified_gmt":"2018-04-23T05:35:23","slug":"in-this-new-era-of-mlb-baseball-expect-more-lopsided-weekends-like-the-cardinals-just-had-c1d1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesportsdaily.com\/news\/in-this-new-era-of-mlb-baseball-expect-more-lopsided-weekends-like-the-cardinals-just-had-c1d1\/","title":{"rendered":"In This New Era Of MLB Baseball, Expect More Lopsided Weekends Like The Cardinals Just Had"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cardinals have gotten healthy<\/em> off the Reds these past two weekends.<\/p>\n

In fact, the Cardinals have more wins against the Reds (7) than they do all the other teams they’ve played combined (6).<\/p>\n

The Reds are BAAAAD.<\/p>\n

Real bad. They are already 10 games back in the NL Central… and there’s still a little under a third of April left.<\/p>\n

10!<\/p>\n

IN APRIL!<\/p>\n

1st place is 1st place, though. I’m not complaining. I’d be down with the Cardinals playing the Reds every weekend if MLB wants to pull some strings and make that happen.<\/p>\n

+++++<\/p>\n

At one point in late in the broadcast on Sunday, FOX Sports Midwest panned over to the Reds dugout and you’d be hard pressed to find a more displeased group of co-workers.<\/p>\n

Morose scene, man.<\/p>\n

Like the boss just told everyone that coffee isn’t free anymore.<\/p>\n

Everyone looked so grim, in a post game chat on WhatsApp with some buddies, I posited the idea that this might be the flight where Joey Votto decides that he’s open to a trade.<\/p>\n

It was more joke-y than anything. I have no idea what’s going on in his head other than a deep desire to be anywhere but Busch Stadium.<\/p>\n

But a couple of people started to wonder what kind of haul the Reds could get for Votto.<\/p>\n

Your (and my) gut reaction to this question was ‘a ton’.<\/p>\n

Votto is an absolute beast!<\/p>\n

He’s gotten MVP votes 8 out of his 10 full MLB seasons (including a win in ’10 and a 2nd place finish last year). He’s produced 19 oWAR points the past 3 seasons. He plays every game (all 162 in ’17). He led the NL in BBs, OBP, OPS, OPS+ and IBBs in 2017.<\/p>\n

And he’s certainly not afraid to mix it up!<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ykGrqppr1t0<\/p>\n

Who wouldn’t want this dude?<\/p>\n

Then I looked at his contract…<\/p>\n