212 plate appearances without a dinger.
At some point, you have to at least run into one?
With the same start last year....he had a 500+ slugging, now at .337.
I agree that there's a mental aspect to this, and I think he'll get it going pretty quickly.
Baseball is like church. Many attend, few understand
"I never argue with people who say baseball is boring, because baseball is boring. And then, suddenly, it isn't. And that's what makes it great." - Joe Posnanski
I've read before (can't remember where) that Joey spend most of Spring and part of April just eyeing the ball and mentally swinging at pitches to get the timing down in his head, and that's the train why he's a slow starter. If that's true, adding that with not being comfortable with his swing just yet and that would lead to not so many crushed balls and a ton of walks.
I'm not worried about Joey not being 100% at some point in the season. I am worried about him having another injury, and another decision being vmade to let him play on it before getting it fixed...And then having yet another surgery to fix it further because the first one didn't do the whole job.
Yep...this makes sense. His swing takes some warming up, but it's part of the reason he's already so good with pitch recognition. He's already been walked more than any other player in baseball by a significant margin (relative to the length of the season) and he'll almost undoubtedly lead the league in walks if he stays healthy this year.
People have been calling him overrated, etc. already...but that's just ridiculous. Votto might be the best pure batter in the league.
I see great things in baseball. It's our game.
He must kick butt in the 2nd half of April for most of his career because his slash line for March/April is .318/.433/.539.
In the end, he is not far off from his usual numbers. If he hits a couple of home runs or a few doubles in the upcoming series his number will be over his average. Like many of these threads, way too early to tell anything.
On the ground he is a pull hitter, but that is most likely due to the fact when he hits a ground ball it's an off speed pitch with some downward movement. In the air, he actually goes the other way more. That is why you will see interesting defenses against him where the infield will actually sometimes use the shift for a pull hitter but the outfield will be straight away to even shading him to go the other way.
I can believe it. It took me about 18 months to completely get over the knee injury that I had in my early 20's.
I'm sure Votto got better care than I did, but knees take time.
Also, I think part of that statement might just be part of Votto's laid back/humble attitude. He just doesn't seem the type that will say "Yep, I'm awesome".
"I'm getting there" seems more like his talk to the press.
[Phil ] Castellini celebrated the team's farm system and noted the team had promising prospects who would one day be great Reds -- and then joke then they'd be ex-Reds, saying "of course we're going to lose them". #SellTheTeamBob
Nov. 13, 2007: One of the greatest days in Reds history: John Allen gets the boot!
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