CSNbbs

The Champs open tonight against the Cardinals. Reds opening day tomorrow. Welcome back baseball.

Quick Reds fans, name the opening day starter without Google. It's amazing how quickly this team turned to awful.

Is Bronson Arroyo in the rotation?

My kid and I heard the opening day starters name on the radio yesterday but I have honestly forgotten it. I don't think either of us had ever heard of him.

This year is starting to look a whole lot like the year that John Nunnley and Chris Steins were on the opening day program cover.

Is this year they make a trade with Votto? How many more years are left on his contract?

(04-02-2017 08:58 AM)bearcatmark Wrote: [ -> ]The Champs open tonight against the Cardinals. Reds opening day tomorrow. Welcome back baseball.

Until ESPN got the contract the Reds always opened the season.

F ESPN

(04-03-2017 08:56 AM)jarr Wrote: [ -> ]Is this year they make a trade with Votto? How many more years are left on his contract?

Not just no, HELL NO.

He is owed $25 million every remaining year until 2023 (when he turns 40 years old) and then if the team does not exercise the $20 million option in 2024, they owe him $7 million more as a buyout. Oh, they also added a full no trade clause for the duration of the contract.

That contract makes him utterly and absolutely about as untradeable as you can get...

(04-03-2017 11:15 AM)rath v2.0 Wrote: [ -> ]

(04-03-2017 08:56 AM)jarr Wrote: [ -> ]Is this year they make a trade with Votto? How many more years are left on his contract?

Not just no, HELL NO.

He is owed $25 million every remaining year until 2023 (when he turns 40 years old) and then if the team does not exercise the $20 million option in 2024, they owe him $7 million more as a buyout. Oh, they also added a full no trade clause for the duration of the contract.

That contract makes him utterly and absolutely about as untradeable as you can get...

Him and the Phillips deal has to be one of the most bone headed GM moves this organization has ever made. I wonder what BA and RBI rate he would need to produce to justify his contract, whatever it is 290-310, 20 HR, and 95 RBI doesn't cut it.

I have no issues with Vottos contact now. He's one of the top 5 hitters in the game and he's paid like it. The issue is he's a the tail end of his prime and is likely going to start regressing. He last 4-5 years are going to be an anchor on the franchise. There's really no justification for signing players into their mid-late 30s.

The last 5 -6 years (2019-2023 plus the buyout) of this deal will absolutely cripple the franchise. Cant only look at the first few years. In its entirety, it was an idiotic deal for anyone other than the top 2-3 teams in revenue that could enter that kind of deal knowing they would eat it on the backend when the player is closer to 50 years old than 20 years old.

Agree. But Votto did hit over .400 with just under .500 OBP and 15 HR in the second half last year. We need to enjoy watching arguably the best Reds hitter ever without lamenting his stupid contract.

The reds could move Votto in a heartbeat if they wanted to. His contract isn't even close to outlandish given his consistent production. If the Cubs didn't have Rizzo I have no doubt they'd be thrilled to make a move for Votto. This isn't close to the BP contract where BP didn't give performance anywhere close to what he is was getting paid. There may be a time when Votto isn't producing what he is getting paid, but the Reds haven't reached that point yet and by the time they reach that point they'll have likely gottne way more production out of him than money paid anyways.

Redzone has some good discussions on the value of Votto's production vs. his cost (based on modern standards, BTW the cost of someone like Votto is rising not falling). http://www.redszone.com/forums/showthrea...able/page4 Essentially, he is well on his way to exceeding the value he was signed for and that ignores all the production they got from him at a discounted rate before the contract. Blaming the reds woes on the Votto contract is silly.

Quote: According to FanGraphs, Votto’s production was worth $39.8 million in 2016. The year before that? $59.8 million.

http://www.barstoolsports.com/baseball/r...nt-page-1/

I feel like the Joey Votto hate is mostly driven by Marty Brennaman's lack of appreciation for things he does amazingly well and his lack of understanding of how people actually being on base in front of you contributes to things like RBIs. Votto is about the only place of late where the Reds have spent their money well. The production Votto gives the reds over his career is going to so far exceed the money they invested in him.

Over the course of his career the reds have already gotten 330.9 million in production value from him. He's a stud. http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?pla...n=1B#value

Sure, I could sell my Honda Accord for $55,000 if I threw in $35,000 in the deal, too.

I do think Votto will age well too. His biggest skill is strike zone judgement. His slugging will certainly go down as he becomes less powerful but he's still going to work pitchers. I could see him being a .275/.375/.425 hitter into his late 30s. While not a star .800 OPS hitters are always valuable.

(04-03-2017 07:21 AM)BeerCat Wrote: [ -> ]Quick Reds fans, name the opening day starter without Google. It's amazing how quickly this team turned to awful.

Scott Feldman - no lookup necessary. While I admit I'm not that excited about his chances for big success this year, it's worth noting he's started two previous Opening Days including Opening Day for the Texas Rangers in 2010. And fwiw, Texas went to the World Series that year. (OK, I had to look up the WS part.)

Quote:Is Bronson Arroyo in the rotation?

Not sure if it's 100% official but unless something happened yesterday he is. Two caveats though are that he very well might not be if either Bailey or Disco weren't on the DL. I expect a lot of variation in the rotation for at least the first few weeks and possibly all season.

he's not a once in a generation hitter like the ted williams (maybe he is) he's oft referred, still an excuse for fans to come out to the ball park to watch that kind of talent. ushers dispensing discount jager bombs for joey walks would turn disco night upside down

(04-03-2017 02:08 PM)Lush Wrote: [ -> ]he's not a once in a generation hitter like the ted williams (maybe he is) he's oft referred...

One could make a case otherwise, in fact at least one did last August in another of my incredible facts about Joey Votto posts:

Why Joey Votto is the most underappreciated great hitter of his era

Quote:Why Joey Votto is the most underappreciated great hitter of his era
Votto has been one of baseball's most productive hitters since the mound was lowered in 1969
Mike Axisa @mikeaxisa
Aug 27, 2016 • 6 min read

Friday night was a fairly run-of-the-mill night for Joey Votto and the Reds. Votto reached base four times, going 1 for 3 with three walks. And the Reds lost. This time on a walk-off wild pitch in the 11th inning by reliever Blake Wood (ARI 4, CIN 3). Here's the video:

The Reds are in the middle of a full blown rebuild and were expected to be bad this season. Chances are they'll only get even worse as the season winds down because Jay Bruce has been traded and plenty of kids figure to get an opportunity to play once rosters expand in September.
Because his team is so bad (by design), Votto's hitting genius is again going overlooked. Friday night's game raised his season batting line to .310/.435/.518 (158 OPS+) overall, and he again makes outs at a rate lower than anyone else. He leads the league in on-base percentage for the fifth time since 2010.

A year ago Votto finished third in the NL MVP voting thanks largely to a dominant second half in which he hit .362/.535/.617 (216 OPS+) with 14 home runs, 86 walks, and 65 strikeouts in 73 games. Votto has been even better this second half: .442/.542/.682 (234 OPS+) with six homers, 33 walks, and 20 strikeouts in 38 games.

Votto sought help via Baseball-Reference
The second half dominance is only part of Votto's lore, however. He's a very thoughtful player who meticulously studies scouting reports and video. When he was struggling earlier this season -- Votto was hitting .207/.330/.367 as recently as May 29 -- he found comfort in the online pages of Baseball-Reference. From Hal McCoy of the Dayton Daily News:
SO VOTTO SAT DOWN AND DID some research. He wanted to see if there were other superstars who had starts like his, but came out of it with a vengeance. He searched Baseball-Reference.com and came up with not one, not two, but three startling revelations.
...
ASKED WHAT GAVE HIM THAT idea, he smiled and said "When you start off as poorly as I did you look for as much hope as you can. I looked at Mays and he had a great season, Musial had a phenomenal season and Jeter had a fantastic year also. I look at those guys as inspirations, the guys I want to compete against while they are available to me."

Votto's critics are quick to point out his relatively low RBI totals. He hasn't topped 80 RBI since 2011 despite hitting .308/.493/.557 with runners in scoring position since the start of 2012. His RBI percentage -- the percentage of runners on base he's driven in -- since Opening Day 2012 is a fairly pedestrian 14.4 percent, on par with guys like Elvis Andrus and Omar Infante.
Votto is not one to expand the strike zone and swing at a pitcher's pitch just for the sake of putting the ball in play with runners on base, hence the .493 OBP (!) with runners in scoring position. Since the start of 2012 he's batted with 1,484 runners on base, the 82nd most in baseball. Bruce is fourth with 2,016 because he spent all those years hitting behind Votto, who never makes out.
RBI is not a great way to measure how effective a hitter is anyway. We know that. At the end of the day, the single best thing a hitter can do is not make an out, and Votto does that better than anyone. He still piles up plenty of base hits and can slug with the best of them, but his military style plate discipline sets him apart. Votto doesn't get himself out and he forces the pitcher to come into the strike zone. That's what makes him so effective.
Votto's spray chart truly is a thing of beauty
In an age where the infield shift is inescapable, Votto is the seemingly rare left-handed hitter who can spray the ball all over the field and hit it where many can't. Check this out (via Baseball Savant):



That's just beautiful. Votto hits for power to all fields and many of his non-home run balls in play are out to left field, the opposite field. Votto is close to shift proof. He's not going to swing at bad pitches and he's not going to make life easy for the defense by rolling over on ground balls to the right side all night. That's the kind of spray chart you expect to see from an all-time great.

Yes, it's time to begin talking about Votto as an all-time great
Since debuting in 2007, Votto has hit .311/.425/.532 (156 OPS+) in just under 5,300 plate appearances. The great Miguel Cabrera has hit .324/.404/.571 (160 OPS+) during that time. Albert Pujols hit .331/.426/.624 (172 OPS+) during the best 10-year stretch of his career (2001-10) and represents the gold standard for early career dominance. Votto has not hit for the same power as Miggy and Pujols, but his offensive performance is not far behind them overall.
Here's a really quick and simple leaderboard. Rather than OPS+, I'm going to use wRC+, or weighted runs created plus. It's a more fine-tuned version of OPS+ that includes adjustments for ballpark and other factors, as well more accurately reflecting the value of certain events. Raw OPS says a walks is equal to a single, and two singles are equal to double, etc. That's not really the case though. The potential to advance baserunners is different for each event, and wRC+ reflects that.

Anyway, here is the career wRC+ leaderboard since the mound was lowered in 1969. I've set the minimum at 3,000 plate appearances, giving us a sample of 955 batters:
Barry Bonds --173 wRC+
Mike Trout -- 167
Mark McGwire -- 157
Joey Votto -- 156
Frank Thomas -- 154
Albert Pujols -- 153
Manny Ramirez -- 153
Miguel Cabrera -- 152
Willie Stargell -- 152
Dick Allen -- 150

By this one all-encompassing metric, Votto has been the fourth-best offensive player since the mound was lowered. He's been 57 percent better than the league average hitter during his career. Don't like the gory math involved with wRC+? Fine. Votto is 14th in batting average (.311), second in on-base percentage (.425), and 26th in slugging percentage (.532) among those 955 players.
This is not a player who is having some tremendously productive years at his peak. Votto has been one of the most productive hitters in Reds history -- among players with at least 1,500 plate appearances, he is first in franchise history in OPS (.957) and OPS+ (156), even better than everyone from the Big Red Machine days -- and one of the best hitters in all of baseball over the last half-century.

Why Votto's excellence may be overlooked
The Reds are not very good and that's by design. They're rebuilding. It stinks but sometimes it's necessary. Rebuilding teams can be easy to overlook, especially when they're in a small market and especially late in the season, after the trade deadline when they're just running out the clock on the regular season. Cincinnati's overall situation makes it easy to glance over Votto's day in, day out brilliance.
Votto is in the middle of another dominant second half, the kind of second half only a handful of players in the game can match. He's very much on a Hall of Fame trajectory and has laid down one heck of a foundation. Votto has the rate stats. Now he just needs to pile up some counting stats, and since he's only 33 and is signed through 2023, he has plenty of career remaining.
Despite all the critics who focus on his RBI totals and resent his willingness to take a walk, Votto is one of the most productive players of his generation and one of the best offensive players of our lifetimes. This is a historically great hitter who deserves more attention for putting together a career than has him on the path to becoming one of the best hitters baseball has ever seen.

Bearhawkeye- Thanks for posting that. I've ready so many things like that on Joey Votto. I absolutely believe he has to be among the most underappreciated great hitters in baseball history. Here's one from last year detailing how Joey Votto just suddenly stopped striking out.

Quote:Prior to this, Votto put up his best 54-game strikeout streak in early 2011, when he went down on strikes in 13.6 percent of his plate appearances. In addition to falling pretty far behind his current strikeout rate, that clip came in a different offensive environment. Major-league hitters struck out in 18.6 percent of their plate appearances in 2011, which has inflated steadily since then; this year, the MLB-wide strikeout rate sits at 21.0 percent.

So not only has Votto avoided Ks – by the way, his second-half strikeout rate ranks 14th in the majors – he’s done so against pitchers who fan more batters than ever before. How? Obviously, he’s relied on his contact abilities. His 6.1 percent second-half whiff rate has approached a career low:

This can’t explain all of it, however. Votto cut down on his swings and misses in different portions of 2013 and 2015, yet the strikeouts remained. To make the leap this time, Votto has also cut down on his called strikes, swinging at 72.8 percent of pitches inside the strike zone:

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2016/9/...ff-z-swing

I just love watching Votto hit. He's so on top of everything, he does everything well you want a hitter to do. He's easily become my favorite Red of all time.

(04-03-2017 02:42 PM)bearcatmark Wrote: [ -> ]I just love watching Votto hit. He's so on top of everything, he does everything well you want a hitter to do. He's easily become my favorite Red of all time.

I still vote for Tony Perez...it wasn't the number of hits, it was WHEN the hits came...he was Mr. clutch RBI for decades for the Reds.

How depressing it is for the Reds to trot a washed up 40 year old out on the mound the day after an impressive debut from a rookie

Win 3/4 for first a first place start and the only comment is how depressing today is going to be because of our 5th starter with 2 SPs out to injury. I'm not promising a successful year from Arroyo, but let's at least give him a chance. If the bullpen can keep it up, we probably only need 5 IP from him.