He was my favorite sketch actor/writer on Late Night. I would love to hear him and Conan talk about his old sketches and other behind the scenes stories we don’t know about.
I was wondering what others in Braves country thought of Brian being on the Astros while they were apparently cheating. Does this change your feelings towards him? Do you think anyone in our organization knew?
> With a supplemental first-round pick, Cincinnati took third baseman Mark Schramek out of the University of Texas. McKeon says he wanted to take future All-Star catcher Brian McCann with the second-round pick. Unlike most organizations, the Reds' baseball operations annual budgets weren’t separated between the big league club, player development and amateur scouting. If the Major League team spent money to acquire a player, funds were often taken from the amateur Draft budget. That's why McKeon got some news he didn’t want to hear ahead of the 2002 Draft.
> [Kasey] McKeon, scouting director: [Bowden] told us we were taking [Chris] Gruler, which wasn’t exactly our No. 1 guy if we had a choice. Fine. Then he told us he’s taking $1 million out of the budget. All right, now we have to start working on some things. That’s when we decided we’re taking Joey and had to move him up. McCann was out and Votto was in because I knew I could move up and cut a better deal with him. At the time, nobody was talking about him. Nobody knew where he would go. I had to find a way to save some money, so I could pay anybody else in our Draft.
> ...
> With the second-round pick of Votto made, McKeon still wasn’t feeling 100 percent comfortable because the deal still had to be closed with a signed contract. He found out the Yankees scout was in Votto’s house waiting to sign him if he fell to that team. The Reds told the Votto family to show the scout the door. Votto didn’t have a ton of leverage, but he had an oral commitment to play for Coastal Carolina University. He also didn’t have an agent yet, but was being assisted by a family friend.
Source, a good article on Joey Votto's scouting and drafting
Edit: John Castleberry, the Reds national scout at the time ended up getting fired in July over the drafting over of Votto along with other busts. The scouting and drafting of Votto came in the most odd way.
Bowman tweet: "Brian McCann is coming home. McCann and the Braves have reached an agreement. Contract specifics have not been revealed."
Edit: "McCann made it clear he wanted to be with the Braves. He passed up some more lucrative offers to once again play in his hometown."
Edit 2: It's a 1 year deal for $2M.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/11/braves-sign-brian-mccann.html
Vote by googling Realmuto and clicking vote! This is absolutely pathetic how he isnt the top vote getter for catchers.
