C. Trent Rosecrans

crosecrans@enquirer.com

GOODYEAR, Ariz. – Leon Roberts had a standard list of questions he liked to ask young players when he was the roving hitting instructor for the Reds. It was the early 2000s, the tail end of baseball’s steroid era, and the answers unsurprisingly reflected the times.

Who do you think about when you’re hitting? “Barry Bonds,” they’d say. Who is your favorite hitter? “Mark McGwire.” What type of hitter do you want to be? “A slugger, like Sammy Sosa.”

But one player, an 18-year-old catcher, surprised Roberts with a different reply. It was 2002 and that player was Joey Votto.

“The first thing he brings up is Ted Williams, who is one of my heroes and someone I studied and had talked to a couple of times,” Roberts recalled. “I thought, this kid has a pretty good base to start with if he’s got Ted Williams at the top of his list.”

Nobody ever expects another Williams, perhaps the greatest hitter who ever lived. Williams did everything you ask of a player – he hit for average, he hit for power, he’d take a walk and he rarely struck out. There may not be a better answer to Roberts’ query, but it was a rare answer.

That answer signaled something different to Roberts. The Reds felt good enough about Votto to draft him in the second round of the 2002 draft with the 44th overall pick. But they didn’t like him enough that Kasey McKeon, who made the decision to take Votto, wasn’t removed from his duties by then-GM Jim Bowden in 2003.

Votto was never the Reds’ top prospect. He wasn’t even in the top 10 from Baseball America in 2003, was fifth the next year and dropped to ninth in 2006, placing between lefty Tyler Pelland and righty Travis Chick.

Somewhere along the way, Votto became this generation’s closest attempt at Williams, mixing batting average, patience and power. To say nobody saw it coming would be inaccurate, but to say everyone saw it coming would be even more so.

“There was a lot of dialogue of who was going to have the highest ceiling on the offensive side. There was a split camp on Joey Votto and Jay Bruce,” said Tim Naehring, then the Reds director of player development and now the Yankees’ vice president, baseball operations.

As Naehring recalls, Roberts used the word “superstar” to describe Votto. He has been proven correct.

Votto’s work ethic ‘above and beyond’

“I stuck my head out in a noose?” Roberts said with a laugh when asked about that statement.

Roberts had seen it before. A native of Kalamazoo, Michigan, he remembers seeing it with a high school junior from his backyard – Derek Jeter. When he was with the Braves, Roberts tagged Chipper Jones and Andruw Jones with similar expectations. Votto was in the same category.

“You see that they want to be good, they want to work, they ask great questions, they ask questions in terms of ‘when I get to the big leagues ...’ You get all these vibes,” Roberts said. “And then you watch them hit and the ball leaves their bat and their hand action and balance and bat speed and timing. There’s a collection of clips that this guy has a chance to be special.”

There may have been debate about his ceiling, but everyone agreed Votto was a worker. Stories of his work ethic abound.

Slugger Museum celebrates Reds' visit with Votto souvenir bats

Naehring has one. As a minor leaguer one spring back in Sarasota, Votto was one day called up to serve as a replacement in a big league game. The young first baseman wasn’t late, but he wasn’t early either. Votto arrived gasping for breath, and noticed the raised eyebrows he received from the big league staff.

Votto calmly explained his whereabouts. After tiring down the stretch the previous season, Votto wanted to train his body to push through it. So he’d been working out at the local YMCA in the early mornings before joining the team for its daily workouts. He wanted to learn how to play fatigued.

“I didn’t know that. Our strength and conditioning guy didn’t know that,” Naehring said. “But it was Joey going above and beyond.”

Early struggles, but patience was evident

Votto certainly didn’t enter pro ball fully formed. In fact, he failed pretty quickly.

After a decent debut in the Gulf Coast League in 2002, the 19-year-old Votto was challenged with an assignment to low-Class A Dayton. With the Dragons, Votto was nearly three years younger than the average player in the league, and his inexperience showed. He hit just .231 with one home run and struck out 64 times in 60 games, resulting in a demotion to Rookie level Billings.

At Billings, he hit .317 with six home runs.

“I came out of a Canadian high school where the hardest people were throwing was in the 70-mph range – 70-75 mph, maybe,” Votto recalled. “I found that getting to pro ball was overwhelming.”

Even throughout his struggles, Votto showed flashes of the hitter he’d become. He struck out too much – 144 times between the two levels – but he still managed a .348 on-base percentage in Dayton and a .452 on-base percentage at Billings, walking a total of 90 times between the levels.

The 2004 Baseball American Prospect Handbook ranked Votto fifth among Reds prospects that year, noting (in what almost seems dated in the post-“Moneyball” era): “Votto draws lots of walks but is often too patient at the plate, putting himself into poor hitting counts by taking a lot of borderline pitches.”

For Roberts, that was a hitter who knew himself and knew what he wanted. Votto wanted to be Ted Williams.

“He always knew the value of swinging at good pitches – which is Ted Williams. Swing at good pitches and taking bad pitches,” Roberts said. “There’s only really two things a batter does – if a pitcher pitches to him and throws strikes, he should hit the ball hard somewhere. If the pitcher doesn’t pitch to him, can’t pitch to him or is too scared to pitch to him, then you just accept your walk. You don’t look for walks, you just accept them.”

Defense had to catch up with his bat

If Roberts was polishing Votto into a diamond, it was Freddie Benavides who had the task of finding the perfect setting for the Reds’ future jewel. Benavides, currently the Reds’ infield coach, was the organization’s infield coordinator when Votto was in the minors.

Primarily a third baseman in high school, the Reds thought Votto may be able to catch, noting the value in a left-handed-hitting catcher. With the rookie level Gulf Coast Reds after signing, the 18-year-old Votto played seven games behind the plate, 19 games at third base and three in left field.

“At the end of instructional league, we said he’s a first baseman,” Benavides said. “That’s when everything started with him.”

Votto wouldn’t play any other position until 2007, when he dabbled in the outfield both in Triple-A and during his September call-up. He hasn’t played anything but first since.

“(Hitting) comes more natural for him,” Benavides said. “From Day 1, it was learning from scratch to learn how to play first base – from positioning to moving your feet to the importance of everything.”

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That’s where Votto’s tireless work ethic comes in. Benavides recalls coming to the field in Sarasota at 7 a.m. during spring training. The two would work before the team’s official workouts started.

“The biggest thing at that time was you knew he was advanced as a hitter and his defense needed to catch up,” said Wayne Krivsky, the Reds’ general manager from 2006 to 2008. “He was learning first base, hadn’t played it a lot. He worked really hard to make himself a good first baseman. It was important that his defense caught up with his bat.”

Votto had 3,004 minor league plate appearance before he was called up in 2007. Bruce, who made his big league debut a year later, got there in just 1,492 plate appearances. The question of his defense was a significant reason for the delay, Krivsky said.

“I think more harm is done rushing guys to the major leagues,” Krivsky said. “I’d rather be on the safe side and make them earn it and make them feel like they’ve earned it.”

In those early-morning workouts, Votto would tell Benavides that he would someday win a Gold Glove. In 2011, Votto did just that.

Votto flew Benavides and his family to New York that year for the ceremony. A few days later, Benavides received a package on his doorstep from Rawlings – it was Votto’s Gold Glove trophy. It’s still in Benavides’ house.

All-Star first baseman finally emerges

Votto has, on occasion, suggested he could have debuted sooner, that he would have been ready for the challenge. But after his brief call-up in 2007, Krivsky decided to pick up the team’s $1.85 million option on the team’s other first baseman, Scott Hatteberg.

Hatteberg hit .310 as the team’s primary first baseman in 2007, but even he knew he was just a stop-gap for Votto.

“We weren’t completely sure Joey was ready, but we viewed Hatteberg as a part mentor, part left-handed bat off the bench, even if he was never known as a good pinch-hitter,” Krivsky said. “It wasn’t a role he relished, but he was a guy we thought had value.”

Reds’ young starters rooting for each other

Hatteberg started for the Reds on Opening Day in 2008, but he started back-to-back games only once. His last start in the big leagues came on May 10, in the second game of a doubleheader against the Mets. Hatteberg went 3-for-4 in that game but would never collect another big league hit.

On May 27, the Reds designated Hatteberg for assignment to make room on the roster for Bruce. Votto’s apprenticeship was over, and the Reds would go on to make the playoffs three times in four years from 2010 to 2013. That first playoff year, Votto won the MVP.

Now 33, Votto is entering his 10th full season in the big leagues and in the part of his career that will decide his future worthiness for Cooperstown. There are countless statistical arguments in his favor, but Roberts looks at the simplest – the slash line of batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage. Through his first 10 years in the big leagues, Votto’s is .313/.425/.536.

Only eight other players have done better in their first 10 years (with a minimum of 3,000 plate appearances): Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, Lou Gehrig, Stan Musial, Todd Helton, Frank Thomas, Albert Pujols and, of course, Ted Williams.

Roberts, who is now the hitting coach for the Royals’ Double-A affiliate after five years in the Astros’ system, still asks those same questions: Who do you think about when you’re hitting? Who is your favorite hitter? What type of hitter do you want to be?

These days, he’s starting to get a new answer.

“Joey Votto.”