The Last Days of Disco

Well, for the second year in a row, the Cincinnati Reds are the single most likable bad team in baseball.

Even as they were playing a series against my Phillies, I couldn't help but like them. So many fun, charming players on that team. I mean, obviously Michael Lorenzen, he of his home-run-hitting and awesome relief pitching. And then you get fun bench guys like Curt Casali, Derek Dietrich and Freddy Galvis. And now you have all the young kids coming up, like Aristedes Aquino, Nick Senzel, Josh VanMeter and Phil Ervin, and they're all ready.

And then you have the favorites, like Joey Votto, Sonny Gray and Eugenio Suarez. And thank god there are some new favorites being cemented this year, like Anthony DeSclafani, or 'Disco' as he's affectionally known. Disco's having his best year since 2015, and is becoming the steady guy the Reds were hoping they'd get in that Mat Latos trade. Plus, you still have Luis Castillo, Sonny Gray and now Trevor Bauer classing up that rotation, though Bauer's doing his usual learning curve tanking right now.

The Reds are so fun and rootable that it pains me to see them miss out on the playoffs yet again. Honestly, this division is so tough that it's really evened out the competition, and the Reds are good enough to be good...but not enough to be really chasing first. And I don't even know when this team will be enough, because I want to think it's soon. The pieces are all there. The only free agents are expendable guys like Jose Iglesias and Alex Wood. This team could collectively slam 2020, and we could FINALLY see one of these Reds teams compete.

...I hope.

Coming Tomorrow- One of those guys that took me all year to find a good enough photo for a custom. Which sucks when you're the only good player in the lineup and you can't do anything good enough to warrant a good photo.