Cincinnati Reds Rumors – Joey Votto declines offer to move to hometown Blue Jays

Every year the Cincinnati Reds ask Joey Votto if he wants to go to Toronto and every year he has said no.

The Cincinnati Reds are keeping National League MVP candidate Joey Votto for one more off-season.  Votto has told the Reds he is not interested in waiving his no-trade clause again this off-season.  There has been talks each of the past several years that Votto wants to go home to earn a World Series in Toronto.

The initial rumors was that this was the year that the Blue Jays were going to make an offer that the Reds couldn’t refuse.  First of all, outfielder Jose Bautista and former Red Edwin Encarnacion are free agents.  So the Blue Jays have cap room to spend this off-season.  They also have the DH position available for an aging slugger like Votto.

What they don’t have is enough young talent.  The Reds have no reason to give away Votto.  The Blue Jays have spent many of their young prospects to get pieces the past few seasons to get pieces to help in the postseason.

More importantly, Votto doesn’t want to go to Toronto in their current state.  He was supposedly ready to leave Cincinnati for a shot at the World Series at the deadline.  The Reds didn’t seriously listen to the offers, though.  Now neither Votto nor the Reds is interested in going their separate ways.

The Cincinnati Reds may ask again if the Blue Jays are in position to make playoff run at the deadline.

The Reds are coming to a point in the rebuild where they need to get players into place for when they will compete again.  Votto has been in those plans, out of those plans, and back into those plans over the past few seasons.  With his high salary, Votto may be out of the plans again.  The possibly of moving Duvall to first base is always present.

If the Reds trade Votto, he will bring in a haul.  The minimum to get to the table would be a young starting position player or starter and two of a team’s top ten prospects.  That’s the starting point.

That is also why Votto and the Reds stay together.  No team wants to pay that high of a price. Unless of course they think he is the difference between missing the playoffs and winning the World Series.  After what happened in this postseason, though, teams that are close will overload in preparation for playing the Chicago Cubs.

Next: Reds listening to offers for Adam Duvall

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None of this impacts Votto. He will tell MLB where he is willing to go, when he is willing to go there, if he is willing to leave Cincinnati.  In the meantime, the Reds’ fans should enjoy watching Votto.  In the end he is their future Hall of Famer, perennial MVP candidate of a first baseman.