Cincinnati Reds: 2019 midseason grade for Joey Votto

Joey Votto, arguably the Cincinnati Reds’ best player over the last several years, has had a very interesting 2019 season that’s been full of ups and downs.

Joey Votto came into the 2019 season with some very big question marks regarding his future production for the Cincinnati Reds. These questions and concerns stemmed from a very un Votto-like 2018 season. Last year, Votto hit for .284 with only 12 home runs. He still led the league in on-base percentage, but is well off that mark in 2019.

Even though Votto’s 2018 season wasn’t terrible, it wasn’t what many fans expected from the team’s best player. While the Reds were in Goodyear preparing for the season, Joey Votto expressed his frustration at last year’s performance. So, how has the six-time All-Star looked halfway through the 2019 season?

By the numbers, Votto’s season has been middle-of-the-road. To begin the season, it looked like the potential was their for the former NL MVP to have a career-worst season. Through the end of April, he was batting only .245 with .355 on base percentage.

Those numbers aren’t terrible given Votto’s history of struggles to begin the season. In his career, Votto has hit .289 with a .406 on-base percentage in March and April, which doesn’t sound bad for the most players, but is easily the worst month of the season for him.

This season, however, things got even worse for Votto. As late as May 22nd, the Reds’ first baseman was batting .206. Votto, who is known to hit for average and getting on base, was struggling and looked like a player that was showing his age. Many felt, as did I, that this may be the start of a career decline for Joey Votto.

However, as the has progressed, Votto’s 2019 season is slowly turning around. He has started to hit and get on base like the Joey Votto of old. Over his last 7 games, Votto is slashing .423/.500/.462. This stretch of great hitting has propelled his batting average to .271 and his on-base percentage to .366, which leads the team.

To the fans who just evaluate a player based on power numbers, such as home runs and RBIs, Votto’s season may be a disappointment right now. Votto has a total of 8 home runs and 22 RBIs. This is a far cry from 2017 where he hit 36 home runs and 100 RBIs. I agree that it hasn’t been ideal for a player with Votto’s stature to have these numbers mid-season.

Joey Votto has produced big seasons of home runs and RBIs throughout his career. Most seasons he was “the guy” in the lineup who was primarily responsible for carrying the team offensively. Things have changed. Votto doesn’t need to be that guy anymore. The Cincinnati Reds have players like Scooter Gennett and Eugenio Suárez who can provide the power and can knock in runs.

That’s not to say that Votto still can’t produce great power numbers, but hitting in the No. 2 hole, the Reds don’t need him to be the player he has been over his whole career. What the Reds need is for him to hit for a decent average and get on base consistently. If Votto does this, he can help ignite the offense and help the Reds score lots of runs.

There is no doubt that Votto has struggled, but his recent hot streak should be encouraging to Reds Country. Votto is even starting to hit for more power as evidenced by hitting 4 of 8 home runs this season over his last 30 games.

With Votto’s season trending in the right direction, it would not surprise me at all to see him pull off a second half like the 2015 season where he hit for .362 with a .535 on base percentage. Votto also had a surge the second half of 2016 where he hit .408 and had a .490 on base percentage.

Joey Votto has been a great player for a long time and I would not doubt him by calling him washed up or in a career decline. It would be foolish to do so. That is why I tend to refer to the first half of his 2019 season as a slow start. We’ve all seen that version of Joey Votto before.