BAR: Revisiting Joey Votto's 2013 season

Joey Votto's off to a nice start this year, and the thing I keep hearing that absolutely baffles me is that he's "back" for the first time since his knee injury in 2012.

Votto's 2013 was really, really good.

In 2013, Votto hit .305/.435/.491 with 24 home runs. That's a very, very good season. He finished fifth in bWAR among offensive players in the National League. He finished sixth in MVP voting — sixth! (I had him fourth, and I wasn't alone.) My all-time favorite player, George Brett, was a no-doubt Hall of Fame player. He finished in the top six of MVP voting four times. That's the same number of times Johnny Bench and Joe Morgan finished in the top six. Pete Rose did it six times. Votto has done it three times.

Yes, there's the whole RBI thing (I really don't want to get into that silly debate again, my point — and the people who don't agree won't, no matter what — is that the RBI is not a good indicator of individual success, that there are too many variables to tie it to one player), but the Reds scored the third-most runs in the National League that year, in part because they had Votto and Shin-Soo Choo atop the order getting on base.

Looking back, can you imagine that lineup if Votto had been batting second? With Choo's .423 OBP and Votto's .435? A good chunk of the games could have started with two men on and no outs. You know how much better of a chance it is to score with two on and no outs than two on and one out? Well, thanks to those nerds in their basements (or whatever outdated stupid insult the establishment wants to throw on people who actually stayed awake in math class), in 2013, the expected runs for runners on first and second with no outs was 1.4089, and with one out it's 0.8815. That's a pretty strong difference.

The 2013 season was disappointing a lot of ways, and even to Votto himself, I'm sure. But to label it a failure or even a "bad" season is really, really silly.

The overuse of "narrative" as a pejorative annoys me to no end, but belittling his 2013 season is nothing but a narrative gone mad.

I think there's a belief and hope that Votto can be better, but the 2013 version of Joey Votto was still one of the best players in the game. (And he played in 162 games.)

• Sorry it took me a while to get this up today, I was blanking on what to write, so I went back to the dead horse beating, so my apologies. Tomorrow's should be up earlier — because I have an early flight to St. Louis.

MINOR LEAGUE ROUNDUP

Triple-A: Louisville 2, Indianapolis 1: Dylan Axelrod allowed one run on just two hits over seven innings. He struck out four and walked one. C Tucker Barnhart was 2-for-4 with an RBI, and 2B Irving Falu knocked in the other run. [Box]

Double-A: Pensacola at Tennessee, ppd.

High-A: Charlotte at Daytona, ppd.

Low-A: Dayton 4, Bowling Green 0: Tyler Mahle threw 6.2 shutout innings, allowing four hits and a walk. He struck out five. 2B Wendell Soto hit a homer for the Dragons and also walked twice and scored twice. [Box]

THE ROTATION

1. Baseball's new metal detectors won't keep you safe, they'll just make you miss a couple of innings. [Washington Post]

2. Carlos Gomez left Wednesday's game in St. Louis with a strained hamstring. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]

3. I was pretty proud of myself when I got a $241 ticket for $30 last month in Montreal because I showed up in the second period. Now I see what I missed — the incredible pre-game shows for the Canadiens. And to think I was impressed by the ones they did for the Blue Jays and Rays (one of the benefits of a dome, you can turn out all the lights for a cool pregame intro). [New York Times]

4. Well done Bell's. The Michigan brewery is making a Pumpkin Peach Ale. [Beer Street Journal]

5. The important things — why are fast-food places hoarding their condiments? [Slate.com]