Cincinnati Reds: Buy or sell for the 2020 regular season

Buy or Sell: Joey Votto bounces back in 2020

This is the question that’s on every Reds fan’s mind as we enter the 2020 season. Will Joey Votto have that bounce-back season that we all hope he does? In all honesty, it’s a very loaded question and one that needs a bit of unpacking. Let’s see if we can do that.

Will Joey Votto return to the player we saw in 2017 that should have won the NL MVP for a second time? I doubt it. In 2017, Votto hit .320/.454/.578 with 36 home runs and 100 RBIs. Votto led the league in walks, on-base percentage and OPS that season. I think it’s unreasonable to expect Votto to return to that level.

However, I don’t think it’s illogical to expect Votto to bounce back from the performances we’ve seen the past two seasons. In 2018 and 2019 combined, Votto’s hit .272/.387/.415 with 27 homers and 117 RBIs. For almost any major league player, those numbers would be very good, but it’s well below what a player making $25M per year should be producing.

Now, I’m not here to debate Votto’s salary. To me, that’s a dead issue. The Reds and Votto agreed to the contract extension and he’s not going to be traded, so the contract situation is what it is. But, if the Reds are going to reach the heights that he, the coaching staff and the front office hope to reach, Votto has to be better than he’s been the past two seasons.

So, will Joey Votto bounce back in 2020? If you’re expecting the 2017 version of Votto, the answer is no. If you’re expecting a better version than we’ve seen over the past two seasons, then the answer is yes. So, buy or sell Votto having a bounce-back season? I’ll buy, with the appropriate level of expectation.

Verdict: Buy