Earlier this week, MLB announced the winner of the National League’s Most Valuable Player award. We all knew that Joey Votto would not be repeating for the Cincinnati Reds, thanks to their craptastic year. But we all wondered where he would place and how many votes he’d get.

As expected, the Milwaukee Brewers’ Ryan Braun won the award. And Votto placed sixth.

1. Ryan Braun, Milwaukee -388
2. Matt Kemp, L.A. Dodgers -332
3. Prince Fielder, Milwaukee -229
4. Justin Upton, Arizona1-214
5. Albert Pujols, St. Louis–166
6. Joey Votto, Cincinnati–135
7. Lance Berkman, St. Louis–118
8. Troy Tulowitzki, Colorado—69
9. Roy Halladay, Philadelphia–52
10. Ryan Howard, Philadelphia—39
11. Jose Reyes, N.Y. Mets—31
12. Clayton Kershaw, L.A. Dodgers–29
13. Shane Victorino, Philadelphia—18
14. Ian Kennedy, Arizona—16
15. Cliff Lee, Philadelphia—12
16. Hunter Pence, Houston-Phi.—10
17. Pablo Sandoval, San Francisco—7
18. John Axford, Milwaukee—7
19. Michael Morse, Washington—5
20. Carlos Beltran, N.Y. Mets-S.F.—3
21. Miguel Montero, Arizona—2
22. Yadier Molina, St. Louis—2
23. Starlin Castro, Chicago—1
24. Craig Kimbrel, Atlanta—1
25. Carlos Ruiz, Philadelphia—1
26. Mike Stanton, Florida—1

Votto was on a majority of the ballots, and I might quibble with him finishing lower than Prince Fielder–who is grossly overrated, in my opinion–but it’s still nice to see him getting some love. He’s very, very good, and I’m going to enjoy his time as a Red as long as it lasts. In fact, I’m sure I’ll be wearing my Votto jersey this weekend at RedsFest.

I saw mention of this story come through on Facebook today in between meetings:

Another big season has earned first baseman Joey Votto the Reds’ Performer of the Year Award, as selected by MLB.com.

Of course, I thought it was a league-level award at the time I read it. Once I realized that MLB.com chose one of these award recipients for every team, I thought they ought to make a special exception in Votto’s case and change the name to the “Well, Duh” award. Consider:

Votto, the reigning National League MVP, batted .309 with 29 home runs and 103 RBIs in his second straight All-Star season. He led the NL with 110 walks, 40 doubles and a .416 on-base percentage, and set career highs for games played (161) and plate appearances (719).

A couple more years like that, and it’ll get even more incredible that this team can’t win. At least Votto will have a nice resume and presence on Baseball-Reference.com. Congratulations to Votto.

Now that the World Series is over, Major League Baseball will start announcing its regular season awards. Last night, the Gold Gloves were announced.

And the Cincinnati Reds had two recipients: Joey Votto and Brandon Phillips.

Phillips has won the award for his defense at second base three of the last four years.

“It’s a lot of hard work,” Phillips said. “The manager and the coaches respect my work.”

Phillips realizes the importance of defense.

“Defense wins games,” Phillips said. “I go out and catch the ball the best way I know how. . . The baseball field is my coliseum. I go out and entertain the fans.”

The award was Votto’s first, and was the first ever for a Reds first baseman.

“I’d like to thank the managers and coaches who selected me,” Votto said. “It always means a tremendous amount to be selected by your superiors for any award, especially for one of this magnitude. I’d also like to thank the Reds’ coaching staff for their help, with a special mention to bench coach Chris Speier.”

Both Votto and Phillips had clauses in their contracts that award them bonuses for the awards. Phillips will be $250,000 richer, while Votto gets $50,000.

Last year, the Reds had three Gold Glove winners: Brandon Phillips, Scott Rolen, and Bronson Arroyo. It could’ve been three again this year, but Jay Bruce was robbed by the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Andre Ethier. I guess there’s always next year.

Today at the Red Hot Household we’re holding our annual end-of-summer party. Coincidentally, this year the event happens to fall on my uncle’s birthday, so I thought it would be nice to make cupcakes. Then I realized it’s also Joey Votto’s birthday, so heck, why not make him one too?

I suppose if I were a true fan, I would have at least used red icing, and/or made the cupcake look like a baseball or maple leaf or something. But I’m not that obsessed; I’m just a woman with an extra cupcake and a rudimentary knowledge of baseball players’ birthdays.

Joey Votto showed why he should get a day off every two months this past week by demolishing the opposing pitchers. And he was awarded with the National League Player of the Week Award.

Cincinnati Reds first baseman Joey Votto has been named National League Player of the Week for the period of July 25-31, 2011. The announcement was made earlier today on MLB Network.

In seven games last week, Votto hit .385 (10-for-26) and led the National League with 24 total bases. The reigning N.L. MVP tied for the league lead in home runs (4), RBI (9) and runs scored (7) for the week, and ranked second in slugging percentage (.923) while posting a .467 on-base percentage. Votto collected hits in every game that he started during the week after going 0-for-1 as a pinch-hitter on Monday, July 25th. He had four multi-hit performances and three multi-RBI games during the week. The Canadian-born All-Star clubbed home runs in three straight games from July 26th-28th, marking the second time in his career that he has homered in three consecutive contests (previously September 3-5, 2008). Votto doubled and scored a run in Cincy’s 7-2 victory on Saturday, July 30th over the visiting Giants. In Sunday’s matchup, the 27-year-old homered, doubled twice and collected four RBI en route to a 9-0 victory that completed a three-game sweep of the defending World Champions. Votto currently leads the N.L. in walks (74) and on-base percentage (.428), and has the league’s fourth-best batting average (.319). This is his second career weekly award, having won previously for the week of September 21-27, 2009.

Other noteworthy performances last week included Votto’s Cincinnati teammate Johnny Cueto (1-1, 0.00 ERA, 14.0 IP, 11 SO); Milwaukee’s Prince Fielder (.450, 2 HR, .800 SLG) and John Axford (0.00 ERA, 4 SV, 6 SO, 7.1 IP); Atlanta’s Freddie Freeman (.500, 15 H, .529 OBP) and Brandon Beachy (1-0, 0.00 ERA, 7.1 IP, 6 SO); David Freese (.381, 3 HR, 7 RBI, .857 SLG) and Albert Pujols (.355, 2 HR, 11 H, 5 2B) of the Cardinals; San Diego’s Jesus Guzman (.429, 2 HR, 7 RBI, .857 SLG); Philadelphia’s Raul Ibañez (.296, 3 HR, 9 RBI); Matt Kemp (.417, 2 HR, 9 RBI) of the Dodgers; Arizona’s Justin Upton (.348, 4 HR, 8 RBI, 6 R, .957 SLG) and Joe Saunders (2-0, 1.62 ERA, 16.2 IP, 7 SO); David Wright (.467, 14 H, 6 RBI) of the Mets; and Florida’s Ricky Nolasco (2-0, 2.19 ERA, 12.1 IP, 8 SO).

In recognition of his National League Player of the Week Award, Joey Votto will be awarded a watch courtesy of Game Time, the leader in licensed sports watches, available at MLB.com.

Enjoy that watch, Joey!

And not just a quick rinse like Mr. Redlegs, but the full 15 seconds. Pay attention kids: that’s how you avoid the dreaded flu-like symptoms.

Yesterday’s titanic struggle against the Chicago Cubs was game 34 of the 2011 season for the Reds, and the team’s 18th win. It was also the first game of the season in which Joey Votto started but did not get on base during the whole game. The on-base streak had been the matter of some discussion, as Votto was coming up on the Consecutive Games of Getting On Base to Start the Season, set at 34 by Dave Collins in 1981.

In fact, Votto didn’t have a particularly good series in Chicago at all this time around. He was 1-for-9 with 3 walks in the series, which is a far cry from the .333 he’s averaging and the .464 he’s on-basing so far this season. It seems a little too Griffey-ish to blame the down series on worry over the streak. More likely the Wrigley batter’s eye is painted just the wrong shade of black or something like that. But if there was any pressure from the streak having an effect on his performance, then I’m super-excited to see what he’s going to do now that it’s broken.

I saw this article about Joey Votto linked to earlier this week from Redleg Nation, and it’s the stuff that myths and tall tales are made of.

For starters, there’s the story about him asking for a pair of new batting gloves from the coach of his youth team, the Canadian Thunderbirds, every other day. They were free, but the constant need for new ones was suspicious. But young Votto wasn’t doing anything sly like selling them for cash. No, it wasn’t that. But the coach didn’t believe his answer.

So the two struck a deal. Every time Votto felt he needed a new pair, he had to trade his old ones in to prove it.

Not long after, the kid showed up ready for the first exchange. The pair he’d been given just a day or two before had holes in the palms. And blood stains all over them.

“They were from broken blisters,” Oswald says.

Votto swung the bat. A lot.

Also, don’t miss the story about Votto’s mighty throwing arm and the ball a teammate missed catching, and the time Votto eschewed metal bats and proved how his burgeoning awesomeness to a persistent scout.

I know it’s hard to predict the success of baseball players, but Votto’s intense focus has always been present. And I think all his practice might pay off soon.

I have so many disjointed baseball thoughts this evening, that I am going to whip out a page layout mechanism I used to use all the time–bullets. They’re even shaped like little baseballs:

• Broadcast in Technicolor I *hate* watching baseball in standard definition. I want to blame DirectTV for the fact that tonight’s game looks like I’m watching it through wax paper, but FSOhio sent me an email last week talking about how HD wouldn’t be available, which I guess means it’s their fault. I had lunch with a bunch of tech geeks today, and they all seem to have gotten rid of their television service entirely in favor of streaming programming from the internet to their televisions. I wonder whether the internets has the game in HD. It would work over dial-up, right?
• It Wouldn’t Matter if He Crapped Autographed Gold Ingots The Cowboy felt the need to defend Paul Janish after he popped out with the bases loaded in this game. A completely badass defensive shortstop, batting eighth no less, needs defending when he’s batting .353 in his first 34 ABs? Only in Cincy.
• Wardrobe Malfunction The ump just stopped Jordan Smith to make him adjust his sleeves to show the same amount of red peeking out from both sides of the jersey. Fashion police anyone?
• Call Him Sunny D Joey Votto is a concentration machine. The fresh-squeezed orange juice he drinks in the morning comes out as frozen concentrate a half hour later. If you’re going to beat this guy, you have to be better than him because he’s not going to give away anything. I think that has to be influencing the rest of the team too; I mean, you can’t boot a ball and expect everyone to be all like, “hey, it happens to everyone” in this dugout. At best, it would be like, “hey, it happens to everyone except Joey.”
• Down Boy It makes me sad that no one on the TV broadcast has mentioned Chris Denorfia coming up with the Reds, let alone called him “Hearththrob.” For old time’s sake, I’ve barked like Dino whenever he’s come up to bat, but it just isn’t the same.

And a bonus bullet, not about baseball stuff, but just a real head-scratcher:

• I Wish for 1,000,000 State Farm Agents When your kitchen table and/or ornamental birdbath are pulverized by the magical appearance of the crap you wished for from your own personal State Farm genie, are the damages covered by State Farm?