Cincinnati Reds miss chance to move Joey Votto at the deadline

For the first time in his career Joey Votto is worth more in prospects than he is as the Cincinnati Reds’ first baseman.

The Cincinnati Reds are in rebuild mode and yet Joey Votto is still on their roster.  The rumors had the Toronto Blue Jays being the big dog in the negotiations according to the Toronto Star, but they can’t afford Votto, yet.  There in lies the rub.

The Reds have a player that will be on the tail end of a Hall of Fame career when the team plans on being competitive again.  They further exacerbated this point by trading Jay Bruce at the August 1 deadline this year.  That left Brandon Phillips and Votto as the only two old veterans on the team.  Phillips’ contract ends this season, but Votto’s continues until 2024.

That isn’t as destructive as it sounds.  Votto is a Hall of Famer and is still elite at getting on base after a slow start to 2016.  The issue is what the Reds need to get back to trade Votto.

They have  a wealth of outfielders and an All-Star in Adam Duvall who would replace Votto at first.  That means that the Reds need to get back infielders and relievers for Votto.  The Blue Jays don’t have that.

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Perhaps more importantly, Votto could have brought back a good return during the second half of the season when rich teams can’t spend money to get elite players.

There was a wealth of teams looking for offense, but the Cincinnati Reds only moved Jay Bruce.

In particular the Washington Nationals have excess money and a wealth of young talent.  Their current first baseman, Ryan Zimmerman is batting seventh and not producing.  They’re looking for a way to compete with the Chicago Cubs and could have used someone like Votto to match up with Bryce Harper and Daniel Murphy to create the best left-handed hitting trio in the game

Then there’s the San Francisco Giants.  In their search for offense they added Eduardo Nunez from the Minnesota Twins.  Then they sent Matt Duffy along with an elite shortstop prospect and a right-handed minor league pitcher to the Tampa Bay Rays for starting pitching Matt Moore.  The Reds would have taken that with maybe an upgrade in the relief pitcher coming back from the Giants.  Instead the Giants added relief pitcher Will Smith to complete their moves.

Both the Giants and the Nationals would have made sense because neither team would want to keep Votto long term.

Either of them would have been happy to flip him to Toronto, where is the only other place that Votto has said he would play long-term.  After this season, the Blue Jays will have free salary space as the contracts of both Edwin Encarnacion and Jose  Bautista expire.  As it stands now, there’s only about a 25% chance that they both re-sign.  With Bautista’s injury this year he likely looking at becoming a DH in the Carlos Beltran mold next season.

Adam Duvall is the future, not Joey Votto.

Moreover, the Reds have Adam Duvall waiting in the wings after showing tremendous ability in left field this season.  He may win the NL home run title and he definitely has earned the right to be a piece that the Cincinnati Reds keep for the future.

In the off-season teams can throw money around and get a gaggle of players for whatever needs that they have.  Votto’s trade value will sink again.  There was merely a six week window when there were no other elite offensive players in the trade market.  As the situation has been under Walt Jocketty, the Cincinnati Reds stood pat in the face of opportunity.

Next: Eugenio Suarez provides power at third base

The Cincinnati Reds are rebuilding.  In the coming years they hope to be back in contention in the extremely competitive National League Central.  Holding onto elite players in the face of their market value sends the wrong signals to the fans.  It just signals that the Reds’ front office don’t really have a timeline for returning the playoffs.