Plowing through the inbox. Time to answer your questions. Here’s a sampling of subscriber emails I’ve received in the past week.
Message: “I watch the Reds play and enjoy success – a bunch of young guys getting it done. What will bringing up Joey Votto do for that group? Will it be a benefit or not? If it ain’t broke, don’t mess with it.”
Reply: Votto has been out since August recovering from shoulder surgery, and Enquirer Reds reporter Gordon Wittenmyer reported the veteran first baseman appears on track to return from a rehab assignment later this month.
Votto, the 39-year-old career Red, will undoubtedly help a young team in the clubhouse. He is a positive guy, loves the Reds and is one of the franchise’s all-time great players. He can offer a lot of advice on hitting and how to approach being a big leaguer the right way, and Votto enjoys helping young players.
Let’s face it, though, Votto is going to take playing time and at-bats away from a young player at a time when the Reds are in all-about-the-future mode. Votto represents the past. It’s not a criticism of Votto or the Reds. Manager David Bell will face a challenge trying to balance things, but he’s good at handling this stuff.
Votto has earned the right to return to the lineup because he’s Joey Votto – let alone that he’s worked his butt off the past 10 months to get back on the field. He’s in the final year of his contract. The Reds are paying Votto $25 million this season, and everyone wants to try to maximize what’s left of an original 10-year, $225 million deal.
It’d be great to see Votto finish with a bang. But someone’s development could be slowed by Votto’s return. Spencer Steer? Christian Encarnacion-Strand? Both? If that happens, let it be a reminder of how inept the Reds’ strategy was a decade ago when they gave one player a New York Yankees-like contract.
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Subject: Bengals coach Zac Taylor and fatherhood
Message: “I enjoyed reading your Father’s Day column on Zac Taylor. It is special that, as a father yourself, you are conscientious enough to ask yourself Coach Taylor’s question: How do I want my kids to remember me someday? I am glad that you are The Enquirer’s sports columnist, but I am also glad that sometimes you choose to write columns that are not exclusively about sports!”
KING: My passion topics to write about are baseball, big news events, local politics, fatherhood and genuine people. Bengals coach Zac Taylor has those last two covered.
One nugget I forgot to squeeze into the column about Taylor being a great dad and winning Talbert House’s Father of the Year award: His father, Sherwood Taylor, attended the ceremony and shared a story from the Bengals’ rough 2019 season.
The Bengals were 2-14 in Zac Taylor’s first season as coach, but his four children could never tell their father was having a stressful year. Taylor was known to go home after some of the early season Sunday afternoon losses and play catch with his son in the backyard of their Mount Lookout home, according to Sherwood.
It’s a story that backs up what Taylor’s wife, Sarah, says about her husband: He’s a model of consistency for their children.
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Subject: Bengals on Amazon Prime Thursday Night Football
Message: “Bengals vs. Baltimore on Nov. 16 is advertised as an Amazon Prime game. Do you know if it will be broadcast in Cincinnati on regular TV?”
KING: The NFL has a new TV rights deal beginning this season, and the league has not announced yet whether it’ll continue the tradition of carrying primetime cable/streaming platform games on local over-the-air television in the teams’ home markets .
However, I asked Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch about it. He said: “Yes, I don’t think that will change in the course of the deal. Common practice (has been) for NFL games on cable/streaming to be carried on local affiliates, and there’s no indication of that changing.”
Last season, WCPO-TV locally carried the Bengals’ Amazon Prime-produced Thursday Night Football game against Miami.
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Contact columnist Jason Williams by email at [email protected] and on Twitter @jwilliamscincy.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati Reds: Will Joey Votto’s return stunt growth of young team?