Joey Votto? Seriously?

[DOUGHBOYS]

I'm a baseball guy. But, I'm not the same baseball guy I was years ago. I've been jaded by fantasy baseball.
Things are different now.
While the playoffs and World Series are the pinnacle for baseball fans, fantasy baseball has my interests during the regular season.
I would write letters to the Hall of Fame imploring them to allow Joe Jackson in the Hall of Fame.
Now, I care less and with the induction of Harold Baines, 'a good guy', the Hall has become more and more about politics than deserved players.

So anyway, I thought I had lost my passion for 'real baseball' and the Hall of Fame.
Until yesterday.
Yesterday, I heard two folks trying to convince each other that Joey Votto belongs in the Hall of Fame.
Seriously.
I could feel my anus start to tighten. The veins on the side of my neck almost to burst.
Joey FREAKIN' Votto!??

I don't hate Votto. I do hate what the analytical crowd has built of Joey Votto.
Joey Votto is where analytics and fantasy crash.
Analytics can't get enough of on base percentage. They preach on base percentage.
Their motto being, "You can't win unless you reach base." Gee, that's wise.
Any time Votto was close to an MVP year, analytical writers would vote for him, then whine after he lost.
"How could a guy with a .425 OBP NOT be an MVP?", they would ask.

Like I said, I am jaded by fantasy baseball.
I could give a rats ass how many times Joey Votto walked.
Did he get a lot of runs scored because he walked?
Not really.
When he started taking all these walks and turning himself from a power hitter to a spray hitter, pitchers liked avoiding him.
Especially with men on base.
It was a perfect storm of Votto WANTING to walk and pitchers WANTING to walk him.
The end result was a lot of walks and analytics folks going crazy over the high on base percentage.

Joey Votto, in a fantasy sense, is a different player.
We care about five categories.
His walking gyps us from what might have been. Especially with runners on base.
His walks being somewhat meaningless in that his RUNS do not see a measurable rise and he's not a base stealing threat for our category of SB's.
So, let's humor these idiots who want to put Votto in the Hall of Fame because of his walks.
Look at these roto stats....

.307/1009/284/944/79

.249/1217/344/937/153

The first set of numbers are Votto. Besides batting average, no category is Hall of Fame worthy on its own merits.
And the longer Votto plays, as depicted by his 2019 batting average of .261, the lower his lifetime batting average will fall.
The second set of numbers that competes or exceeds Votto in every category, but batting average, looks to be that of a slug, a home run hitter who swings for the fences constantly.
It's really not.
They are the numbers of Curtis Granderson.
Granderson, unless gaining entry on the Baines path of being 'a good guy', will never be considered for the Hall of Fame.
Granderson never came close to a .400 OBP in a year.
Granderson found ways to score. Votto is a sloth. If somebody on his team hits the ball hard and far enough, he'll score.
Otherwise, he dies on the vine.

Votto made a career choice. He went from slugger to walker. From Slugger to Spray hitter.
Analytics folks, like Votto, are convinced he made the right decision.
His own team, the Reds, hinted that they didn't like the change.
They kept putting the round peg of hitting Votto third or fourth into the square hole of a run producer.
For you analytics folks, run producers are the fellows that drive in the fellows that walk.
That would be the RBI stat that you think so little of.
As if walking and reaching first base is the end game in baseball....but that's for another day.

It seems all new stats are built around joey Votto's ilk.
On Base Percentage is king and it drives run expectancy, WAR, and a bunch of other new abbreviations that analytics comes up with.
But from a baseball perspective, Joey Votto should have to be just like you or I at the Hall.
He should have to pay to gain admittance.
The Dominicans have a saying...
"You can't walk and get off this island, you have to hit your way off."
Votto has not done enough hitting.