Galvis locked in at SS

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(01-16-2020, 05:39 PM)bengalfan74 Wrote: I stand corrected. I haven't watched Votto walk back to the dugout dozens and dozens of times with runners on base. 

Of course you have seen that. Baseball is a sport where literally nobody has managed to get a hit 3.7 times out of every 10 at bats over a career. If you succeed 1 time out of 3, you're an instant Hall of Famer.

Ty Cobb has the best career BA in history at .3662, which means he failed to get a hit 63.38% of the time... and the second highest is darn pretty far behind at .3585

(01-16-2020, 06:41 PM)Circleville Guy Wrote: RBI aren’t only about hitting with runners in scoring position. It’s also about driving the ball. Homeruns and doubles with a guy on first are a big reason that sluggers get paid. Votto is more of an OBP guy than a slugger. He got paid a contract that a 30HR 100RBI .300 AVG guy would get. He had 15HR 47RBI and .261 AVG and takes up 20% of the payroll. If he had 30 more runners in scoring position, he may have had 10 more RBI. He really needs to drive the ball more. A high OBP is not a bad thing but it’s more valuable for a speedster than for a slow and bad base runner.

I literally have been making posts for awhile now clearly showing that a player doesn't have sole control over if they are a "100 RBI guy". Yet here you are again with 100 RBI guy stuff regardless.

Barry Bonds in 2003 hit .341, had 45 HR, and only had 90 RBI. 
Brandon Phillips in 2013 hit .261, had 18 HR, and got 103 RBI.

Phillips simply had the #1 and #2 guys in OBP batting ahead of him (Votto and Choo), so he constantly had runners on. 

When Votto signed his contract, he was coming off a 29 HR season. The previous three years he hit 37, 25, and 24 HR. He was clearly a 25-30 HR guy more so than a 30+ HR guy.

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At the end of the day, wRC+, which factors in all offensive stats (including baserunning) and adjusts them for the parks they were done in (so no GABP boost) says that among all players with at least 1000 PA between 2012 (when Votto signed his extension) and 2019, Votto has been the 3rd best offensive player in all of baseball. 

1. Mike Trout at 75% above league average
2. Aaron Judge at 52% above league average
3. Joey Votto at 50% above league average

And Judge is only #2 because of the low threshold of PA, with only 1700 while Votto has 4800-ish and Trout has a little over 5100 in that same timespan.

They gave that contract to an elite offensive player, and Votto has simply been that.