Joey Votto’s Profession Is a Banger of a Story

On Wednesday, Joey Votto officially announced his retirement from a significant league profession that spanned elements of 17 seasons, all with the Cincinnati Reds. He hit free company for the primary time final winter earlier than signing a minor league contract with the Toronto Blue Jays, his hometown workforce. Throughout his first spring coaching recreation with Toronto, he stepped on a bat and twisted his ankle, and it took him till June to get again into video games. He finally reached Triple-A in the beginning of this month however struggled there, hitting .143/.275/.214 with 22 strikeouts in 51 plate appearances with Buffalo.

“Toronto + Canada, I wished to play in entrance of you,” Votto wrote on Instagram. “Sigh, I attempted with all my coronary heart to play for my individuals. I’m simply not good anymore. Thanks for all of the assist throughout my try.”

“Anymore” is the important thing phrase there, as a result of for the majority of his profession, Joey Votto banged. He retires with a .294/.409/.511 slash line, a 145 wRC+, 58.8 WAR, 356 dwelling runs, and a couple of,135 hits. He made six All-Star groups, gained the NL MVP award in 2010, and ranks fortieth all-time in profession MVP shares at 3.08.

I shall be very stunned if Votto isn’t inducted into the Corridor of Fame pretty shortly after he debuts on the poll in 4 years. (He didn’t play within the majors this season, so for the needs of eligibility, he retired after 2023.) Assuming he does, he’ll primarily get in on the premise of his tangible profession accomplishments, with no controversy to counterbalance. My vote for him, as long as I haven’t prematurely shuffled off to eternity, shall be based mostly on his accomplishments as a participant, however in the case of Votto, his legacy is extra than simply his on-field efficiency.

As a baseball participant, Votto was very a lot a Twenty first-century slugger, quite than the basic energy hitter archetype. A phenomenally disciplined hitter, Votto swung at simply 19% of pitches thrown to him outdoors the strike zone from 2012 to ’20 (utilizing the Sports activities Data Resolution information), second solely to Alex Avila. It’s no coincidence that Votto was one of the disciplined hitters round; you’ll be hard-pressed to seek out somebody who doesn’t consider Votto as one of many recreation’s most considerate individuals. Whether or not hanging out at chess clubs, learning Spanish simply to speak higher with teammates, or using his Players’ Weekend nickname to pay tribute to Canadian soldiers who died in World War I — by the use of Canadian poet John McCrae’s famous poem, “In Flanders Fields” — he was all the time attention-grabbing, in the very best means. Votto was a relentless tinkerer of his swing and his method on the plate, and when his profession was on the particular downslope, he took the daring step of changing into extra aggressive on the plate, a fairly large change for a participant in his late 30s, squeezing out one final nice offensive season in 2021 (36 homers, 140 wRC+).

Votto additionally spoke out about his experiences with grief and anxiety, again in 2009, when it was taboo for an athlete to speak publicly about their psychological well being. As Julie Kliegman reported in her recent book, Thoughts Sport: An Inside Take a look at the Psychological Well being Playbook of Elite Athletes, gamers at the moment are extra open about their struggles with psychological sickness and extra prepared to hunt the assistance that they want than they have been 10-15 years in the past; that’s due to stars like Votto and Zack Greinke, amongst others from throughout the sports activities panorama, who came forward at a time when mental-health conversations in sports activities have been uncommon. This type of factor has all the time resonated with me as a result of my dad was severely psychologically affected by his experiences in Vietnam, and quite than having the ability to settle for help — regardless of how usually and vigorously it was provided to him — he spent 25 years attempting to drink away his recollections, which he managed to do completely in 1997. I’ll all the time have a really tender spot for somebody who speaks up in order that others can get assist.

It’s bittersweet when a beloved participant retires. It represents a sudden change in a participant’s life, but in addition in ours. Abruptly, athletes have to just accept that they’ll by no means once more do the factor that they have been finest at doing for thus lengthy, and we notice we’ll by no means get to look at them do it once more, both. As was the case with Buster Posey, Votto’s retirement hit me more durable than I anticipated it could. There’s an actual feeling of mortality when individuals you have been writing about as younger gamers at the moment are previous (in baseball phrases) and out of baseball.

Okay, that’s sufficient sentimentality for this stathead; again to Votto’s profession and Corridor of Fame profile. Let’s have a look at his profession numbers and see how they evaluate to different first basemen. Classifying gamers by place isn’t neat, however for the needs of this piece, any participant who seems on Jay Jaffe’s First Base JAWS leaders list shall be thought of a primary baseman. Nevertheless, I’ve eliminated any information from earlier than 1901, just because skilled baseball within the 1800s was as a lot carnival sideshow as aggressive sport. You possibly can argue for a later – and even a lot later – start line, however this deep into an article about Joey Votto isn’t the very best place to have that combat.

By profession WAR alone, Votto’s résumé isn’t that overwhelming, and it doesn’t assist his case that he has simply over 2,000 hits and fewer than 400 homers at an offense-first place, however one has to take peak efficiency and profession size into consideration. I’m an enormous believer in taking a look at peak worth — how good they’re at their finest over an prolonged interval, divorced from the majority counting stats in the beginning and finish of their careers — as long as we’re speaking a few peak that’s past simply a few years. I believe Aaron Judge is a Corridor of Famer proper now, and had I been a voter on the time, I might have solid my vote for Johan Santana. I’m additionally not constructive that Félix Hernández shouldn’t be a Corridor of Famer. It isn’t a flaw within the information that Jack Morris has extra profession WAR than Sandy Koufax, however in case you’re utilizing WAR to make the case that Morris was simply nearly as good as or higher than Koufax, the flaw is the way you’re utilizing the device.

The Corridor is about greatness, so I are inclined to favor measures that embrace a peak run — comparable to WAR7 — and/or deal with wins above common quite than alternative. The desk above is sorted by our model of WAR, however for the remainder of this piece, I’m going to make use of Baseball Reference’s WAR, which ranks Votto barely greater (64.5, eleventh) than ours does, as a result of that’s what Jay makes use of for JAWS. I’m additionally utilizing Baseball Reference’s wins above common to maintain issues constant. Excluding something that occurred earlier than 1901, Votto ranks seventh on the place in each WAA (37.7) and WAR7 (46.9) and ninth in JAWS (55.7). Besides for individuals who have been busted for efficiency enhancing drug use, the entire Corridor of Fame-eligible gamers who rank within the high 15 by First Base JAWS have been inducted. Merely, Votto belongs within the Corridor of Fame.

Votto’s pretty speedy decline saved him from gaudier WAR numbers. After an enormous drop-off in his energy in 2018, his age 34 season, his resurgent 2021 marketing campaign was an actual outlier. However as Orson Welles once said, in considered one of my favourite quotes – and my desired epitaph – if you would like a contented ending, that relies upon, in fact, on the place you cease the story. Sure, many people wished one other chapter, however Joey Votto’s profession quantities to a banger of a narrative.