Zach Buchanan

zbuchanan@enquirer.com





GOODYEAR, Ariz. – The numbers say Joey Votto will be worse in 2017. Or, perhaps more accurately, not quite as fantastic.

Yes, the Cincinnati Reds first baseman is coming off arguably the best two-year stretch he’s ever enjoyed at the plate. Yes, only a pair of injuries have interrupted what otherwise would have been an eight-year run of offensive dominance. Odds still remain he’ll get worse.

That’s the prediction of every baseball projection system, all of them dense algorithms created by intimidatingly smart statisticians. Some say only slightly worse, from great to a little less great. Others say he’ll be merely pretty good.

That’s because Votto will play this year at 33, and almost all players gradually decline as they progress through their 30s. He could certainly beat those projections – every season players do – but his prime won’t last forever.

For the Reds, that means a race against time, and it raises a question that could define Cincinnati’s rebuild. How long will Votto be one of the best players on the planet, and can the rest of the roster catch up before it’s too late?

He wanted to be Ted Williams, so he became Joey Votto

Deal made with understanding of physical demand, talent level

Barring the unforeseen, Votto will be a Red at least through the 2023 season. On Sept. 10 of that year, he’ll turn 40. Baseball is not littered with many players who continued to perform at an elite level at so advanced an age.

The Reds, of course, don’t expect 40-year-old Votto to perform like the 32-year-old version. The older version will be making more money – Votto’s salary kicks up from $22 million to $25 million starting in 2018 – but that’s the reality of how the baseball economy works.

“When you sign long-term deals, you expect to get more production than you’re paying in the early years, and less production than you’re paying a lot of times in the final few years,” said Reds general manager Dick Williams.

The Reds didn’t just close their eyes and wish for the best when they signed Votto to his 10-year, $225 million extension before the 2012 season. Like any team about to commit nearly a quarter-billion dollars to a single asset, they tried to predict the future.

They consulted their proprietary aging curves, algorithms that compare the history of player performances at different ages. The results aren’t sure bets, but they suggest Votto possesses a skillset that ages well. He walks a lot, doesn’t strike too much and has never relied on hitting home runs to do damage.

“We certainly think that the effect (of aging) is going to be felt a lot more dramatically if you are a player that relies on power, if you have high strikeout totals,” Williams said. “Those guys do not age well. Joey doesn’t fall into those categories.”

Votto’s also a first baseman, meaning he’s avoiding the wear and tear that comes with playing more demanding defensive positions. On top of that, he stays in great physical shape and doesn’t carry around a gargantuan frame.

That all bodes well for Votto’s aging process. But how long he’ll forestall his decline phase is nearly impossible to determine. To run an accurate aging curve, you need a sizeable list of historically comparable players. But therein lies the rub.

There aren’t many players like Joey Votto.

In Votto’s case, past player comparisons hard to pin down

That’s the problem Jeff Zimmerman sees from the outset. Zimmerman writes for Fangraphs.com, and deals with aging curves extensively.

For a more conventional player like shortstop Zack Cozart, performance over time can be projected with more certainty. Votto’s a bit of a unicorn.

“It is an issue,” Zimmerman said. “There’s no way around that.”

Votto has a career average better than .300, an on-base percentage above .400 and a slugging percentage above .500.

Over the last four decades, only nine other players could say the same through age 32. None of them are perfect matches for the Reds first baseman.

Chipper Jones, Bobby Abreu and Manny Ramirez played more difficult defensive positions, and thus asked more of their bodies. Ramirez and Jason Giambi’s aging processes can’t be trusted due to the use of performance enhancing drugs.

That leaves five players with whom to compare Votto, hardly a trustworthy sample size. Frank Thomas and Albert Pujols were true power hitters, and in their primes carried bigger and heavier frames than Votto. Jeff Bagwell, Todd Helton and Lance Berkman are better fits in terms of stature and plate discipline. But like Pujols and Thomas, all three relied more on the home run than Votto.

After turning 33, none of the five managed to produce at an elite level for very long. Votto could be different, simply because he is different.

“It’s with these – I don’t want to say freaks – but they’re great players,” Zimmerman said. “The greatest players are the hardest ones because there’s no one else to compare them to.”

Reds' Joey Votto confident despite spring stats

Votto provides the wins,

but will need others to step up

Fangraphs calculates a version of wins above replacement, an all-encompassing stat that aims to determine how valuable a player is compared to the average substitute from Triple-A. Since his MVP season in 2010, Votto has been worth an average of 6.4 wins to the Reds.

That’s a sizable chunk of the total a team needs to make the playoffs. In 2016, the average playoff team had a WAR of about 45. The World Series champion Chicago Cubs nearly hit 60.

The 2013 Reds, the last Cincinnati team to make the playoffs, produced 41 WAR. Last year the Reds produced a WAR of 15, and had the second-worst record in the majors.

“A replacement-level team is going to do 52 wins, or whatever the number is. It changes the more data we get,” Williams said. “If you can generate 35 wins above that, you’re an 87-win team. Is that enough to be a wild card team one year? Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t.”

The last two years, Votto has produced a lot of value for a team not really trying to win. Williams maintains that rebuilding around Votto was the only course available to the Reds, but it essentially forces the organization to waste a few of their cornerstone’s best years while the process plays out.

The Reds are optimistic that he’ll continue to be the superstar he’s been for the better part of a decade. If he keeps putting up 6-win seasons into his late 30s, they’ll be in good shape. If he’s closer to a 2.5-win player – still valuable, but not an MVP candidate – it’s a tougher gap to close.

For his part, Votto is bullish on the organization’s rebuilding process. He looks at the talent the Reds have accumulated in the majors and minors and sees the seeds of a winning team in the next few seasons. With three of the top 38 picks in the 2017 draft, the Reds will only line their coffers further. But when it comes to predicting his own future, Votto’s much more hesitant.

“I would like to play well. There’s a lot of factors,” Votto said. “The factors that are out of my control are more important than the ones I can control. We’ll see.”

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