Long-time Cincinnati Reds slugger (and Cardinals nemesis) Joey Votto sought a storybook ending to his career. He sought a Canadian finish in Toronto for his hometown Blue Jays.
Votto smacked a homer in his first at-bat in Grapefruit League play for the Blue Jays. Then he stepped on a bat, rolled his ankle and never fully recovered his ability to perform at a high level.
He worked and worked and worked to get his ankle right. He worked and worked and worked to relocate his swing.
Alas, he never did. In 31 games across three minor-league levels he mustered a miserable.165/.298/.271 slash line. He hit .143 in 15 games at Triple-A Buffalo and finally called it quits.
“Toronto + Canada, I wanted to play in front of you,†Votto wrote on Instagram. “Sigh, I tried with all my heart to play for my people. I’m just not good anymore. Thank you for all the support during my attempt.â€
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Later, he spoke with reporters about his failed quest to go out as a Blue Jay.
“I can say to the very last pitch I was giving my very all,†Votto told reporters. “But there’s an end for all athletes. Time is undefeated, as they say.â€
The Cardinals and their fans know this all too well. Yadier Molina stayed too long. So did Adam Wainwright. Their final seasons were hard to watch.
Time closed in on Paul Goldschmidt this season, just as it chased down so many before him.
Votto is 40 going on 41. He struggled during his later years in Cincinnati to remain productive. But like Molina, Wainwright, Goldschmidt and other elite players of this era, he refused to give in.
The great ones, they don't give in.
“I did the very best I could with my rehab. I did the best I could in my game competition,†Votto said. “I was really proud of that, but I just was not good enough. And that’s the end of it.
“I’m a big fan of the UFC and I watch fighters that retire at the right time and stay too long, and I hear the commentary from the commentary crowd, and I just think, I want to make sure I retire at the right time. Maybe I didn’t. Maybe I retired too late.â€
Tipsheet will miss Votto. He played with passion. He battled on for the Reds year after year when that franchise was undermanned. He connected with fans. He spoke his mind. He chirped rivals. He loved for the battle.
In the end, he was too proud of his career and too respectful of baseball to make a cameo appearance with the Blue Jays, just to say he did it.
“This isn’t my organization, so how can I show up and make it my day, my moment? Here’s an at-bat, here’s a game, here’s a stretch of time. To me, it’s disrespectful to the game,†Votto said. “I also think it’s disrespectful to paying fans that want to see a high-end performance, and I would have given them an awful performance. So truly, I can say that I tried my very best and I just came up short. And I’ve had 22 years of not coming up short, so I guess I’m due.â€
Here is what folks have been writing about Votto’s legacy:
Ray Ratto, The Defector: “The 17 years of his career make him a borderline candidate for the Hall, and if you don't think so, take it up with Baseball Reference. The BR elves see him as Middle America's Freddie Freeman, a one-team lifer whose career slash line of .294/.409/.511/.920 stands up well against the fully plaqued Orlando Cepeda and Gil Hodges. Unlike Cepeda and Hodges, Votto's postseason numbers are modest because Cincinnati's participation was modest, but his work, which includes an MVP, six All-Star Games, and a career top 60 on OPS+, stands well with his assumed betters. Mostly, though, Votto got course credit for being Votto, a perpetually grounded person who wore his happiness at his circumstances on his sleeve, even when the Reds wore their sleeveless jerseys. He wasn't just at peace with his career, he was in public, unabashed love with it and shared it freely. Baseball being a game built on a culture of showing nothing but business face to the outside world, Votto was an overt outlier, the logical inheritor to Tony Gwynn, a magnificent hitter who loved being a magnificent hitter but never disdainful of those who weren't. Gwynn then, and Votto now, just Got It the way we want all athletes in all sports to Get It.â€
Anthony Castrovince, : “If you’re into storytelling, then you could tell a story about Votto as the archetype of the modern analytically minded player, someone who paid attention and adapted to the advanced numbers far earlier than most and ultimately compelled fans to do the same. ‘The way I play,’ Votto once told me, ‘challenges people to think outside the box, and it challenges people to go against their former ideas of what a good player looks like.’ Votto was not a good player but a great one. To me, the question is not whether he is a Hall of Famer; it’s how do we retroactively award him the second career MVP honor he deserved in 2017?!”
Jesse Yomtov, USA Today: “Votto made his big-league debut in 2007 after the 'Steroid Era,' and was a different type of slugger than the power-hitting first baseman in the generation that preceded him. A Gold Glove winner, Votto topped 30 home runs only three times in his career (2010, 2017, 2021), but was one of the toughest hitters in baseball, leading the NL in on-base percentage seven times in an nine-year span from 2010-2018 . . . Among players with 7,000 career plate appearances, Votto's .409 on-base percentage is the ninth-best of the integration era (since 1947), trailing six Hall of Famers, Barry Bonds and Manny Ramirez. Of the top 15 (including Votto) on that list, 11 are in the Hall of Fame. While Votto's home run numbers didn't stand out every single year, his slugging percentage usually ranked in the top 10, including an NL-best .600 in his 2010 MVP campaign. Since 2008, Votto ranks first among all batters in walks (1,360), sixth in hits (2,108) and fifth in games played (2,032).â€
Matt Snyder, : “Votto doesn't hit any traditional benchmark stats that have, in the past, been automatic tickets to Cooperstown. He didn't reach 3,000 hits or 500 home runs. He didn't even get to 500 doubles, 1,500 RBI or 1,500 runs. His average dipped below .300 late in his career, though he was able to stay above .400 OBP and .500 slugging. This is something that will be latched onto by people who don't want Votto in the Hall of Fame, but it has never been a disqualification. Johnny Mize ended up with 2,011 hits, 359 homers, 367 doubles, 1,337 RBI and 1,118 runs. Kirby Puckett had 2,304 hits, 414 doubles, 207 homers, 1,085 RBI and 1,071 runs. Jim Rice fell short of the aforementioned counting-stat benchmarks. So did Orlando Cepeda, Billy Williams, Ralph Kiner, Larry Walker, Vladimir Guerrero, Ross Youngs, Willie Keeler and Chuck Klein. And on and on we could go, hitting every generation along the way.”
Will Leitch, : “Baseball is, at its core, a simple sport. There is a guy, standing on a hump of dirt in the middle of a field, with a ball that he is trying to throw past another guy, who is standing in a little box (roughly!) 60 feet away. The guy in the box is trying to get on base. The guy on the hump of dirt is trying to stop him. There are, obviously, many, many complications that are going to spring up around this elemental battle. But this is what it’s really about. The guy gets on base and thus wins the battle, or he doesn’t. There is no one in the past two decades of baseball -- two decades in which it became obvious, and universally accepted, that in the end there was nothing more important than that guy’s ability to get on base -- who was better at winning this elemental battle than Votto. He did a lot of things well as a player, but there was nothing he was better at, and better than anybody else, than getting on base and winning that battle. He led his league in OBP seven times, and every Votto at-bat must have been absolute torture for every pitcher who faced him. He understood the intricacies of that battle -- that battle that is the foundation of everything that happens in a baseball game -- better than anyone else. It was harder to get Votto out than anybody else. He was the best in baseball at the most important part of baseball. What could possibly be more deserving of the game’s highest honor?”
Dan Szymborski, FanGraphs: “For the bulk of his career, Joey Votto banged. He retires with a .294/.409/.511 slash line, a 145 wRC+, 58.8 WAR, 356 home runs, and 2,135 hits. He made six All-Star teams, won the NL MVP award in 2010, and ranks 40th all-time in career MVP shares at 3.08. I will be very surprised if Votto isn’t inducted into the Hall of Fame fairly quickly after he debuts on the ballot in four years. (He didn’t play in the majors this season, so for the purposes of eligibility, he retired after 2023.) Assuming he does, he’ll mainly get in on the basis of his tangible career accomplishments, with no controversy to counterbalance . . .As a baseball player, Votto was very much a 21st-century slugger, rather than the classic power hitter archetype. A phenomenally disciplined hitter, Votto swung at just 19% of pitches thrown to him outside the strike zone from 2012 to ’20.â€
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“I wanted to play a year in Toronto at home, in front of family, in front of my country,†he said. “I’m really saddened that I wasn’t able to make it happen, that I wasn’t able to arrive and perform at the Rogers Centre in a Blue Jays uniform representing the city I grew up in, country that I grew up in and my people. The feeling of playing in front of the fans here would have meant a lot to a lot of people that I’m close to. But I’ve taken pride in playing well. I want to play well, and I wasn’t doing that, so I don’t think I would have given them a satisfying experience.â€
Joey Votto, on falling short of his comeback bid.