MIAMI — Reds first baseman Joey Votto is a great hitter, an earnest donkey-buyer and a potential Hall of Famer, and for a brief and wonderful window in 2016, he operated as perhaps Major League Baseball’s foremost on-field troll.

In what looked like a classic heel turn, Votto began seizing opportunities to anger and alienate opposing fans: Foul-ball fakeouts, paper-airplane destruction, vaguely Marxist trash talk aimed at children. It was all harmless and goofy, but Votto sold it well.

I should’ve sent it to you yesterday. I failed you. pic.twitter.com/MTpTt4BAMG — Swarles Barkley (@SwarlesBarkley_) May 16, 2016

Votto got caught on camera taking on a heckler earlier this season, but for the most part, he’s avoided contentious antics in 2017.

“Last year, I was trying to have some fun,” Votto said at Marlins Park earalier this week, “and I realized that it’s not much fun when you’re on a losing ballclub. After a while, I just went back to the hotel or back to the house sour.

“It’s no fun losing. Losing sucks. And we’ve lost too much of late. I have my good moments when we’re winning, but you can’t have a smile on your face when you’re down 7-2, or something like that. It’s embarrassing. I think it’s embarrassing. This is what we get paid to do.”

The hope, then, is that Votto revives the material if and when the Reds next get good. The Cincinnati club has built a solid core of capable and controllable position players in their mid-to-late 20s around Votto, whom they owe $157 million over the next six seasons. Their bullpen’s been good this year, too.

But the Reds have suffered this season due to the Major League’s worst starting pitching staff, which owns a putrid 5.91 ERA for 2017. They’ve got a bunch of promising arms in the organization, but many of the most promising arms have struggled at every Major League turn.

Outside of an injury-riddled 2014 season, Votto has shown no signs of slowing down in his early 30s. He enters the second half with a career-best 1.058 OPS an an NL-leading 26 homers. So there’s a fairly good chance Votto’s still a good player whenever the Reds next give him the inclination to troll.