01-16-2020, 03:53 PM
(01-16-2020, 02:26 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: 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.
Thanks for posting these stats. Votto has been a .307 career hitter, while Pérez finished his career at .279. I’m guessing that Pérez gained that reputation between 69-77 years and during the playoffs. There is an obvious pressure not to want to make that last out too. Pérez hit .021 less with 2 outs and runners in scoring position while Votto hit .032 worse than his career average. Votto is more noticeable because of the ridiculous contract and not having a surrounding cast to take up the slack like Tony did. I look for Votto to have a better season than last year. If he gets worse then he should be a platoon player the following year.
