Galvis locked in at SS

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(01-16-2020, 01:45 PM)bengalfan74 Wrote: I sure hope you're right !

Myself and probably pretty much everybody would be happy if Votto would come in with 23 HR's and 87 RBI's, decent production, we understand he's not 28 years old anymore. 

Where he gets under fans skins (mine included) is when he comes to the plate in the bottom of the 8th down two runs, with runners on 2nd and 3rd and two outs and strikes out on 4 pitches never taking the bat off his shoulder ! Or drawing a walk with 1 swing ! Then the next guy hits it back to the pitcher.

Swinging at balls is simply bad baseball. If the guy doesn't throw strikes, then you shouldn't swing. The goal on offense is to not make outs. Joey Votto would have done his job in that case and it's the next guy who sucked and needs to change.

Joey Votto is a career .330 hitter with RISP and .275 hitter with 2 out RISP.
Tony Perez was a career .284 hitter with RISP and .258 hitter with 2 out RISP.

The difference is Tony Perez had Joe Morgan and Pete Rose hitting in front of him and Johnny Bench hitting behind him, and Joey Votto had Billy Hamilton/Drew Stubbs/Zack Cozart/etc hitting in front of him, and Jay Bruce/Brandon Phillips behind him... so Perez got the RBIs and is widely considered a "clutch" hitter. 

RBIs are a team stat. If you don't have runners on base, you can't drive them in, and if you don't have someone who's at least slightly scary to pitchers, they'll pitch around you. Perez only had 2 years of 15+ IBB, Votto has had 6. People were much more willing to pitch around Votto and go after Bruce or Phillips than they were willing to pitch around Perez and go after Bench.