Joey Votto took the best parts of Moneyball culture and eschewed the worst parts. The longtime Cincinnati Reds first baseman put together a strong Hall of Fame résumé, with the main point in his favor being a ridiculous .409 on-base percentage across parts of 17 major league seasons. He didn’t have prodigious home run power but still slugged quite a bit, and only five hitters in the expansion era (since 1961) have been harder to get out than Votto while making as many plate appearances as his nearly 9,000. Votto understood the value of getting on base but was anything but a spreadsheet robot. He was fun with fans, introspective with the press, and the kind of team captain who would learn fluent Spanish so that he could properly lead the Latin American players who surrounded him in the lineup.
Votto’s retirement amid a tough minor league season with the Toronto Blue Jays was sad, because there were never a lot of Vottos. Now, there may be even fewer. Votto was a headliner of a fading breed: the hulking, mashing first baseman in the middle of a team’s lineup.
These are not easy times to be a hitter in Major League Baseball. Pitchers throw harder than ever, and teams have cracked the code on defensive positioning. League-wide offense has been in the toilet for years and has remai...
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