Joey Votto Owned Me

On June 1, Cincinnati Reds first baseman Joey Votto had a triple slash of .213/.330/.404. I wrote an article expressing the opinion that, at the time, he was bad. A lot has changed since then. Joey Votto, like he did to the buffoon in the Reds shirt at last night’s game, has owned me.

I was going to wait until the end of the season to determine if my article—headlined “Joey Votto Sucks Right Now And The Reds Will Have To Pay Him Forever”—stood up, but Votto’s been on such a tear that I have to call the race. His slash line is now .293/.425/.500. He went 4-for-4 with a walk and one RBI in last night’s game as Cincinnati took a big dump on the St. Louis Cardinals. He had an absolutely ridiculous July, batting .413/.549/.627 and recording at least one hit in 19 of 23 games that month. He’s currently on a 16-game hitting streak. Joey Votto is good and strong.

Allow me to mount a feeble defense, however. Votto wasn’t good when I wrote the article, and his performance, which I admitted was early in the season, merely served as a peg to point out that the Reds signed him to an absurd 10-year contract in 2012. Here’s a paragraph I wrote at the time:

The season’s young, but this seems like an opportune time to drop a reminder that Votto’s going to be here for a while. Before the 2012 season, Votto signed a 10-year, $225 million contract extension with Cincinnati for the largest deal in franchise history and what was then the longest guaranteed contract in MLB history. (The Marlins eclipsed it with a 13-year, $325 million agreement with Giancarlo Stanton in 2014.) The money sounds like a lot—and it is—but baseball contracts tend to overpay at the back end for underpaying for a player’s prime. Indeed, Votto’s 2012 and 2013 were stellar, and after a quad injury ate up his 2014 season, he was fantastic in 2015. But Votto’s now 32, and if his hitting can be expected to improve by a lot it’s still dreadful, and he’ll be on this contract for roughly forever.

Votto did suck at that time. The Reds will still have to pay him forever. But those facts don’t matter, because Joey Votto metaphorically hit a home run straight into my dick and my dick exploded. I’m sorry, Joey.