Joey Votto is still Elite

[cbassxu]

www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2015/8/7/9101805/joey-votto-cincinnati-reds-elite-august-2015

The best first baseman in baseball is probably Paul Goldschmidt. Entering Wednesday's games, he's posted a 173 wRC+, he's walked in an absurd 17.8% of his plate appearances, he's hit 22 home runs, and he's even stolen 17 bases. Goldy does it all.


The second-best first baseman in baseball is probably Joey Votto. It's almost weird to be saying that in 2015, but it shouldn't be. It feels as if Votto has been around since the Pleistocene Epoch, yet he's only 31. Injuries cut short a brilliant 2012 campaign and again struck last year, when he only appeared in 62 games. He's returned with a vengeance this year, and looks like his old self. In 448 plate appearances over 102 games, Votto is hitting .309/.433/.530. That slugging percentage is noticeable, as it's on track to be his highest mark since 2012.


This is important. In his last full season, 2013, Votto hit 24 homers. He's already hit 19 this year, and looks poised to pass that threshold. Last year, 13.3% of Votto's balls in play were softly hit. This year he's brought that rate down to 9.4%, and increased his hard-hit rate to 36.1%. FanGraphs' PITCHf/x values show that Votto is having a major rebound campaign against sliders and curveballs, so he's not relying on just hammering fastballs either. Per Brooks Baseball, Votto hit only .115 and .222 against sliders and curveballs, respectively, in 2014. This year those rates are .237 and .414. Here he is teeing off on a Kyle Lohse curve.




Healing from the quad strain that sidelined Votto last year has certainly returned some of his strength. He's pulling more balls than ever (40.3%), which is more than 5% over his career average. The rest of his batted ball numbers have remained relatively stable, so it's safe to assume that Votto is using his rediscovered capacity for muscling balls to convert line drives into extra-base hits.




One of the recurring narratives surrounding Votto was that he walked too often at the cost of hitting homers and driving in runs. The argument went that because Votto is a middle-of-the-order hitter, his job is to prioritize knocking in runners rather than simply getting on base. This year, Votto is having his cake and eating it too. He ranks fifth in all of baseball in Runs Created, a Bill James brainchild statistic that seeks to quantify just how many runs a batter is responsible for. Votto is also second in Times on Base, behind (of course) Goldschmidt.



The days of Votto being the unquestioned class of his position are through, in all likelihood. Yet his renewed greatness is going largely unnoticed as the NL Central leaves the Cincinnati Reds behind and the rest of the league pilfers the team for spare parts. Votto's behemoth contract means that he'll probably stay at the Great American Ballpark for some time to come. Reds fans are spoiled to have a player of Votto's caliber play for them every day, and one hopes that the rebuild in Cincinnati will be a quick one so that Votto's prowess can be harnessed for a title run.

[kramer1]

What dork determines "soft hit rate"??

Good god. That guy needs to get laid.

[breakerslim]

Well we know Bruce isn't elite. Waits til the deadline and is now 0 for his last 40.

[FoulBalz]

Joey Votto should get rid of the tight pants look.

We know he just loves to battle his way on base fouling off pitches to obtain his vaunted walk. If he tested the limits with huge baggy pants and shirt he could get some free passes to first via hit by pitches.

Come on Joey. Take off the spandex. Take one for the team. Show them you are a leader.

[redsfanman]

Now I see FoulBalz yelling for Joey Votto to take his pants (ahem, spandex) off, while picturing Kramer trying to hit FoulBalz with a bat for expressing a homosexual desire.  Oh well.

[devils]

Joey is a stud is was great seeing someone show some emotion even if we suck!! Hopefully we can get a new manager next year that will run the same lineup out there everyday rather than drawing em out of a hat everyday!! Yes Joey is overpaid but at least he's not throwing in the towel on the rest of the season!!

[The Dude]

How exactly is he overpaid?

[jbuck]

it's like giving 2 bones to a dog for one bone worth of work

[redsfanman]

Joey Votto now has a .458 OBP in 2015, better than his .422 career OBP.  During his MVP season it was *only* .424.  His best OBP season was his shortened 2012 season (111 games), in which he put up a .474 OBP.

With 26 homeruns he's now having his third best season in that category, after 37 in 2010 and 29 in 2011.  I wouldn't be at all surprised to see him finish this season with 30+, and his second best homerun year.

His three best OPS seasons are 2012 (1.041, albeit in a shortened season), 2010 (1.024), and 2015 (1.020).


Conclusion?  No longer elite.  When looking at bad players who got big contracts Joey Votto should be at the top of anyone's list.  He's well into a decline from his knee injury, and will never recover.  Or something.  More seriously, I am happy to see the return of his homerun power.  He still looks as deserving of a $25m/year contract as almost anyone.

[general]

Yeah, the power is the best part of his resurgence. His knee must be fine, and he's beginning to make people forget he ever said "I'm not the same player anymore". Yeah, he might be better.

The problem is Votto's shining silver lining on this dark cloud doesn't make up for stats like this.

"Baseball ‏@baseballminutia 13h13 hours ago
Madison Bumgarner has 5 HRs in 64 PAs. The Reds catchers and their Cf have 7 HRs in 959 PAs"


I'm not suggesting Billy Hamilton should hit more homers, but this stat is pretty funny. Hopefully Meso comes back healthy and Billy can get things together next season. I would love to see Billy Hamilton in CF for many years, very exciting player.

[rocky15231]

Not only is he elite, he's one of the top 5 players in baseball. His offensive numbers are unmatched unless you're name is Bryce Harper or Paul Goldschmidt, and those guys likely both finish top 3 for MVP.

[floydgator]

And he was lousy in May. Outside of that month, his numbers are even more ridiculous than his overall numbers already are.

I've been critical of Votto in the past, but this season shows he remains capable of being the best offensive weapon in baseball - getting on base at a ridiculous pace AND hitting like a slugger. His career high in XBH is 75. He has 58 so far. He's going to come close to matching it - in a different hitting era. I think it is fair to say that this has been his best season. Too bad it has been on this team.

AND he has 8 steals!

[mackenzie45220]

I never really had a problem with the Votto contract, even after last season (I blamed injuries), and here's why; Joey Votto type players tend to age pretty well. Guys who age really poorly tend to have lots of power and awful strikout rates (Ryan Howard, Cecil Fielder, Adam Dunn, Dan Uggla, Mark Reynolds, Nick Swisher, Mo Vaughn, Josh Hamilton ish). I'll acknowledge Nelson Cruz as an exception, although he suspiciously seems to have gained power. Guys who age kinda poorly are often pull happy (Albert Pujols, Mark Texeira, Kevin Youkilis, Jason Giambi). Paul Konerko is a bit of an exception. I'm not counting Carlos Beltran because he's a switch hitter. Guys who are neither pull happy nor good opposite field hitters sometimes age well, sometimes poorly (Lance Berkman, Adrian Beltre, Chase Utley, Magglio Ordonez, Torii Hunter, David Ortiz, Prince Fielder). Guys who age well hit the ball opposite field a lot (Edgar Martinez, Todd Helton, Matt Holliday, Ichiro, Julio Franco took it to an extreme). Joey Votto falls squarely in the latter category. I can picture a 39 year old Votto still getting opposite field singles all of the time, and working the count like you wouldn't believe. I think the most apt comparison is Helton. Helton hit better for power and struck out a bit less when he was younger, but that was in a more hitter friendly era and in the ultimate hitters park. Also, remember why Coors is a hitter's park. It actually is baseball's largest stadium; the low air pressure just helps the ball carry and makes the spin on all pitches a little bit less tight, which helped Helton not strike out. Votto walked a bit more than Helton did. That, and strikeout rates have just gone up in recent years. But look at Fangraphs. Helton's batted ball data is not really any different than Votto's (both go opposite field over 30% of the time, Votto goes center a tick more than Helton, Helton pulls a tick more than Votto). And Helton aged pretty well. Forget Coors because it's Coors; in away games, from ages 30-39, Helton had a slash line of .291/.396/.427. That's pretty good. I think we can expect that (with a few more walks) from Votto for a long time.

The other great thing about Votto is he's a first basemen. That's in contrast to guys like Fielder, Howard, Miguel Cabrera, Ortiz, Frank Thomas and Giambi, who are designated hitters who sometimes were forced to wear a glove. Joey Votto is a good defensive first baseman, so he doesn't actually need to hit this well to be worth his contract. We were all terrified after last season, where he hit a career worst .255/.390/.409 thanks to an injury. He only played about a third of the season. But here's the funny thing; according to Fangraphs, if he had played 162 games while putting up that slash line, he would have been worth about 20 million dollars, only 2.5 million less per year than what he'll actually get when the extension kicks in. Translation: if you have a .390 OBP and you play above average defense at your position, it's really hard not to be worth at least $20 million dollars.

There are only two things that I believe may go wrong with this contract. For one, injuries happen more often when you get older, blah blah blah. But also, there's a good chance he'll only be worth his contract. "Only" is a weird term to use in that context, but in sports, you have to buy wins to get a championship. You can either do that by either spending more than everyone else, or by spending your money more efficiently than everyone else. In leagues with salary caps, the latter is pretty much your only option. To win an NBA championship, you pretty much have to find a way to acquire $90 million worth of talent for $70 million. If you acquire $70 million worth of talent for $70 million, you'll go .500. Same goes for football. But in baseball, some teams can just outspend the others. Unless you are one of those teams, you have to be crazy cost efficient in order to get far. Maybe acquire $180 million worth of talent for $100 million if you're us, and hope some of the bigger spenders spend poorly/get unlucky. The problem is that I'm pretty sure that Votto will be worth $22.5 million per season over the life of his contract (there will be inflation, which will set the bar even lower), but in any year where he's worth less than $35-40 million, we probably won't win the World Series. Now, if he played for a team like the Yankees, he only has to be worth his contract for the team to have a shot at the World Series. But for a team like us, he'll need to be more than that.

However, it's also not out of the question that he could be worth that much. The price of a win is not constant. I.e., eight guys who produce 1 WAR are not as valuable as 1 guy who produces 8 WAR. If it was that simple, we could trade Desclafani, Chapman, and Frazier for Mike Trout and it would be fair for both sides (assuming identical contracts). As a result, a guy who is worth 2 WAR is little more than twice as valuable as a guy who gets 1 WAR. Votto needs to produce about 3 WAR to be worth his $22.5 million annually. But if he gave us 6 WAR? He'd probably be worth $60 million, not 45. So, that helps a little.

[mackenzie45220]

Also, I know it sounds weird when I say that if Joey Votto could produce 3 WAR, he'd be roughly worth his $22.5 million salary. But the thing is, you can't just build a team through free agents, because no one has the money to do that. Because no team, no matter how much money they have, can buy Bryce Harper, because Bryce Harper isn't a free agent, and he won't be until like 2018. And it's basically impossible to have so much money that simply having the best over age 30 talent can make you baseball's best team. Since most guys don't hit free agency until they are like, 30, the Dodgers can only use all of their money to buy baseball's best older players, but the young guys get paid nothing no matter how good they are. Young guys frequently can produce 5 WAR for 400k, but they get 400k because them's the rules, not because they're worth 400k. In free agency, you pay guys more money and get less WAR than you would for the young guys, but as a result, Votto only needs to produce about 3 WAR per year to be worth $22.5 million, because the only people you're really allowed to bid on are really old/in decline. And yes, I'm aware of signing bonuses in the draft and international bonus pools, but the amount you are allowed to spend on those things is pennies compared to what you can spend in free agency.

Think about it this way. Let's say every player in baseball combines to produce 1000 WAR. Let's say the combined payrolls of every team in baseball is 3 billion. That would mean 1 WAR= 3 million. At that price, Joey Votto has to be this good every year for the next 10 years to be worth his contract. However, let's say that 600 WAR comes from guys who are not free agents/are being payed less than their market value by rule (guys like Trout, Harper, even Frazier, Cozart), and combined they are getting 200 million. That means all of baseball has 2.8 billion to spend, and the guys they can spend it on are worth a combined 400 WAR. That comes out to about $7 million per win, which might explain why Joey Votto only has to be about as good as D.J. LeMahieu (until he's 41) to be worth his contract.