Let’s take a look at what’s going wrong with Joey Votto so far in 2019

[Wonderful Monds]

He’s been a black hole in the lineup obviously, providing negative value so far.

A lot has been written about his bat slowing down, and I was kinda assuming that’s what was going on myself, so I checked out his batted ball numbers. I’m not really sure that’s the case now.

Looking at his batted ball types, his hard hit% is 40.6, up from his career mark of 37.3. His soft hit% is 8.9%, slightly less than his career number of 11.1%. So he seems to be hitting the ball decently hard. His exit velocity is 88 MPH, and his career average is 88.6.

The big difference is, his flyball% is waaaaaay way up. 45.5% this season vs. a career 33.5%. Following that, his line drive% is 19.7% down from 25.7%. He’s also hitting fewer ground balls, 34.7% this year down from his average of 40.8%. His launch angle this year is 17.3 versus an average of 11.


I’m not sure exactly what this suggests, but to me, it seems like it’s a matter of approach. It seems like Joey is making an extremely concerted effort to swing for the fences to regain the power that was missing last year, and it’s completely not working out so far. I don’t know if that’s a Turner Ward thing - Winker also seems to be infected with the same approach so far.

If that’s the case, that would be pretty encouraging to suggest maybe he’s not completely done yet. If it’s an approach problem - and the batter ball profile suggests it might be - than it would seem that’s something he actually still has control over.

[Tom Servo]

I just kind of doubt that Votto would be doing anything mandated by a hitting coach. I'm reminded of when he tried to change his approach a few years ago, on his own, and dropped the experiment, on his own. I think the hitting coach for him is just a soundboard more than anything.

[Redeye fly]

I just kind of doubt that Votto would be doing anything mandated by a hitting coach. I'm reminded of when he tried to change his approach a few years ago, on his own, and dropped the experiment, on his own. I think the hitting coach for him is just a soundboard more than anything.

I'd be inclined to agree with that part of it. Be pretty audacious for a new hitting coach to come in and tell the guy who's been one of the better hitters of his generation, "hey I think you should do this instead." And sure in part that's what hitting coaches do with probably most hitters. But Votto hasn't been most hitters.

[Wonderful Monds]

I just kind of doubt that Votto would be doing anything mandated by a hitting coach. I'm reminded of when he tried to change his approach a few years ago, on his own, and dropped the experiment, on his own. I think the hitting coach for him is just a soundboard more than anything.

True, he did mention independent over the offseason regaining his power is a priority for him. I imagine it’s a combo of Joey’s own goals playing off Ward’s hitting strategy.

[Chip R]

Votto has always been defended (rightly so) in the past for not swinging at balls outside the strike zone and seemingly preferring a walk to a hit. The problem is now that not only is he taking pitches outside the strike zone he's taking pitches inside the strike zone. Now there are pitches inside the strike zone that even if you swung at them and hit them the result would be a pop up or a ground ball. But Votto seems to even be taking pitches that are right in his sweet spot. I also think he's getting challenged more. I don't think pitchers fear his power anymore. In the past they had so much respect for his power he wouldn't get good pitches to hit. Now even when he's getting good pitches to hit he's rarely doing anything with them. His OPB is in the 320s which is Billy Hamilton territory. It's barely adequate for anyone but almost 100 points below Votto's career OPB.

[Tracy Jones]

Votto has always been defended (rightly so) in the past for not swinging at balls outside the strike zone and seemingly preferring a walk to a hit. The problem is now that not only is he taking pitches outside the strike zone he's taking pitches inside the strike zone. Now there are pitches inside the strike zone that even if you swung at them and hit them the result would be a pop up or a ground ball. But Votto seems to even be taking pitches that are right in his sweet spot. I also think he's getting challenged more. I don't think pitchers fear his power anymore. In the past they had so much respect for his power he wouldn't get good pitches to hit. Now even when he's getting good pitches to hit he's rarely doing anything with them. His OPB is in the 320s which is Billy Hamilton territory. It's barely adequate for anyone but almost 100 points below Votto's career OPB.

Billy would have been a great player if he managed a consistent.320 OBP.

I still think Votto will be a good hitter going forward. Unfortunately it’s probably going to happen when the Reds are out of the race.

[TheBigLebowski]

It's probably been discussed here and I've somehow missed it -

What kind of practice cut is he taking? It's so strange. It's almost like he's trying to paint a wall or maybe trying to start a pull mower with two hands.

[Spanky]

It's probably been discussed here and I've somehow missed it -

What kind of practice cut is he taking? It's so strange. It's almost like he's trying to paint a wall or maybe trying to start a pull mower with two hands.

He does that because he's always been beat by the inside fast ball so it's to try to get ready to foul an inside fast ball off because he knows he cant do much with that pitch. Votto seems to be inside his own head at this point and looks like he is thinking waaaayyyy too much up at the plate.

[Kc61]

Reds lead the NL in fly ball percentage this year.

Reds lead the NL in soft contact % this year.

Some of the key Reds hitters, Winker, Votto, Puig have fallen off in BB/K rates compared with their norms.

These are some of the stats showing why Reds players overall have poor offensive numbers this season.

Some of it may be new coaching ideas or attempts to avoid the shift. Many hitters try to hit over the shift, more fly balls.

Some of it (team wide) is the absence of Gennett and the poor starts by Barnhart and Peraza who have been very unproductive to date.

Not sure where Votto's particular issues fit in this framework, but whatever the ailment is, he's not been immune this time around.

[Wonderful Monds]

I just kind of doubt that Votto would be doing anything mandated by a hitting coach. I'm reminded of when he tried to change his approach a few years ago, on his own, and dropped the experiment, on his own. I think the hitting coach for him is just a soundboard more than anything.

True, he did mention independent over the offseason regaining his power is a priority for him. I imagine it’s a combo of Joey’s own goals playing off Ward’s hitting strategy.

Also to expand on this a little - I think this would definitely be true if we were talking purely mechanical stuff and that coaches probably had less influence when that was the majority of their job. Now though, when coaches are in a more analytical driven position and working with a lot more data that guys like Votto might not have seen before, I think they might be able to convince players to make more significant changes if they’re saying “if you swing with this launch angle, you’re this much more likely to hit this many more home runs, and if you do that you’ll create more runs even if you have fewer overall hits” (or something to that effect) instead of saying something like “hey tweak this thing about your swing, it looks off.”

The Dodgers are a heavy analytics team, so are the Reds now, it wouldn’t surprise me if Ward was using a lot of advanced stats to convince the hitters to make a few drastic changes in their approach.