Is it Unthinkable? Is it?

Joey Votto could take one for the team

In late April of 2016, Joey Votto stepped into the baseball confessional and offered this:

“I’d rather quit and leave all the money on the table than play at a poor level, I’m here to play and be part of setting a standard. It’s something I’ve always taken pride in. I signed up for a high-level of performance. I didn’t sign up for this just to make money. It’s great and I don’t take it for granted. I appreciate every dime that comes my way. I just care a great deal — desperately. I refuse to accept my peak has past, I refuse to accept that my best days are in the past. I’m not there yet. I just don’t see that, I don’t feel that.”

On that day, Votto was absolutely correct. His best days weren’t behind him. After a slow start, Votto led the league in OPS+ batted .326 hit 29 homers and scored 101 runs. He topped himself in ‘17, finishing 2nd in the MVP voting to Paul Goldschmidt. At 33 in ‘17, Votto was at the top of his game. A hitting savant, a perpetual striver and always in great shape. There was no reason to believe he couldn’t keep it up a few more years.

And he did, mostly. Votto hit 36 homers in ‘21, at age 37. Last year wasn’t good, though and by mid-August, Votto was done, KO’d by a torn labrum and bicep. He hit .205 with a .689 OPS, unthinkable numbers for a player who will get deep HOF consideration.

Votto has two years and $45 million left on his 10-year contract. Given his age (39) and his reduced production, is it reasonable to expect him to turn back the clock once more? Or is it more likely he won’t?

Do his words in 2016 resonate with him still?

Because right now, he is the guy he was talking about back then.

Understand: No one wishes more for Votto than I do. He filled my notebook for years. By word and deed, he’s a really good human being. And he certainly has earned the chance to run for Comeback Player of the Year.

But what if. . .

It’s highly unusual for a player in any sport to leave lots of money on the table. Off the top, I can’t think of any who did. The best I could find to do it in baseball were Michael Cuddyer and Gil Meche.

Who?

Precisely.

Bjorn Borg quit tennis at age 26. But he didn’t leave guaranteed playing dollars on the table. We’re not talking about great players who retired young (Jim Brown, say) but about guys who willingly walked away from millions they were already guaranteed.

So. . . here’s some heresy on a slow news day:

Could Joey Votto best serve the Reds by saying goodbye and, at the least, foregoing some of the $45 mil currently owed him? (To be accurate, it’s $25 mil in ‘23 with a club buyout of $7 mil in ‘24.)

If anybody would think about it, it’d be Votto. He said as much in ‘16. He has options. Votto could slide straight from the dugout to the broadcast booth. Any organization would love to have him teach hitting. Or, given that he’s Votto, he could simply take a few summers and travel the world, chasing his diverse passions.

Baseball defines him, but it doesn’t confine him, if that makes sense.

Again, I’m not trying to retire Joey Votto. And it certainly isn’t his problem the Reds paid him the sun with a deal that reached the stars. It’s the Reds problem, and it was predictable the day they made the offer and he accepted. Twenty-million at age 40, from a team that doesn’t have big pockets. Whoa.

It’s not Votto’s fault his salary is a noose around a rebuilding team’s neck.

But what if?

Given the Reds recent penchant for chain-sawing the payroll, maybe they wouldn’t spend the savings. Merry Christmas, limited partners. And maybe Votto will make these words look foolish by making like 2016 in 2022. That’d be fabulous.

But should Votto take early retirement/one for the team?

Realistically, would he?

Now, then. . .

NOT JUST A PRETTY FACE. . . I’m reading The Pioneers, a book by the historian David McCullough that details the settling of the Northwest Territory, which included Ohio, specifically Marietta and, later, Cincinnati.

McCullough writes this, Charles Dickens observations of our town, in 1842:

“Beautiful, cheerful, thriving and animated. I have not often seen a place that commends itself so favorably and pleasantly to a stranger at first glance as this does.’’ Dickens found Cincinnatians “intelligent, generous and agreeable and with good reason proud of their city.’’

McCullough writes,

By the time of (Dickens’) visit in 1842, Cincinnati had become a great center for meatpacking, breweries, distilleries, boat works, soap plants, shoe and beet factories. The population would steadily increase, due in substantial part to the thousands of immigrants arriving every year, in part a consequence of the potato famine in Ireland and revolutions in Germany.

HAVE FUN TODAY, KIDS. . . We’ve had a spectacular fall, which followed a wonderful September of little rain/humidity and cool temps. It ends today, according to the weatherman. I’ve got 18 lined up today in Kenton County with my man Pogo.

Tomorrow, it’s gonna suck. Same for the next week, maybe the next 3 months.

Soon enough, we’ll be longing for days like this. This is a pic took at Robinson Preserve, one of my favorite places anywhere, in Bradenton, FL

TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . Whatever happened to these guys? One album and gone. Very good album, though, one I played while driving through the desert east of Phoenix, while at spring training. Listen to this tune and see if it doesn’t fit perfectly a cruis through canyons and cacti.