Reds June 2023 thread

[CJD]

(06-19-2023, 11:33 PM)bengalfan74 Wrote: WOW!!

I was on the road all day and didn't get to watch and caught very little on the radio. But Votto with an HR and 3 RBI's, who woulda thunk it?? Great for him!! Perhaps he'll fool us all and go out with a giant BOOM

I was prepared for the exact opposite of this come back. Perhaps he really is healed up and can contribute?

Reds in 1st place, I'm just stunned all the way around.

The narrative surrounding Votto is so interesting to me. In 2021, he had an OPS+ of 139 (39% better than the average player) with a slash line of .266/.375/.563/.938.

In 2022, he was clearly injured and had surgery to repair his arm which he said he had been playing with pain for several seasons and he didn't realize it was an injury until that year. He tweeted "I didn’t know I was hurt. Thought I just stunk."


I didn't think he'd come back and be an all star or anything like that, but he's been an above average hitter for, literally, his entire career. His lowest OPS+ ever recorded before 2022 was a 95 in 2019, a season where he was also playing through some injuries (Hamstring injury in May 2019, back injury in June, back injury again in August, Illness in September). He had a slightly down year in 2020 (OPS+ of 107) as he struggled to find his power following his 2019 injury season (and also COVID made everything kind of weird). In every other year, he didn't drop below 125 OPS+.

Very few teams have a better #6/#7 hitter available to them than Joey Votto, even coming off of an injury.