not exactly sure why you would think the best player in baseball who is only 30 is not here to stay.Originally Posted by Vottomatic
not exactly sure why you would think the best player in baseball who is only 30 is not here to stay.
...Joey Votto is a late bloomer.
Every Reds fan hated Adam Dunn...why would any Red fan then want Bautista.
21 HR's and only 44 RBI's until tonight. Hitting .269
No way
I'd rather do Votto for Matt Kemp, wouldn't think twice about that one
Clearly we have differing opinions on what makes someone the best player in baseball. I'm not going to be dismissive enough to say flavor of the month or that he's "chemically enhanced".
At the same time, when a guy's comparables on baseball reference include names like Jack Howell,Dan Pasqua, Craig Paquette, and yes even Jonny Gomes, to me he needs to do it for a more extended period of time to be remotely considered the best player in baseball.
I know the baseball reference comps probably don't take into account what he's done so far this year, but even so, it's not likely the guy had an Albert Pujols type year last year with that .260 batting average. Not that batting average is everything, but even last year was more Ryan Howard than Albert Pujols, and not many people really say Howard is the best player in baseball.
Well then I'm glad you're not managing the Reds.
He turns 31 in October.
A guy who has had stints in the majors since 2004, and played in over 100 games in 2007, is a career .251 batter, and never hit more than 16 HR's in a season untnil hitting 54 last season, is the best player in baseball?
Get frickin' real.
He's batting .335 right now. The highest full season batting average he's ever had was last year, and it was only .260.
Again, get real.
This.
And this.
Jose Bautista is the best player in baseball right now. His triple slash is .335/.486/.685. He could pretty much tank the rest of the season and still be in the MVP conversation. That's how good he's been.
The big thing for me wouldn't be how good/bad either player will be, but the contract and the potential to resign Votto. Bautista is locked up for five more years; Votto is locked up for three. Then, look at ages and how much that may impact Bautista's decline.
I've heard he likes Cincy and doesn't like change!!
A. I would not trade Votto for Kemp. Kemp has had a lot of problems in the past and was even benched for awhile last year.
B. I am not sure I would trade Bruce for Bautista. Bruce is really starting to hit and has a huge upside.
Sometimes people shine because of their situation (don't need to look further than Griffey Jr.). There are a lot of factors to look at - your fan base, the community, your manager, your teammates ... I am not sure Bautista would shine in Cincy. Of course you never know.
Call it a matter of semantics, being bull headed, or just having to agree to disagree, but I side with Vottomatic on the first point.
He may be having the best offensive season of any hitter right now, but that at best makes him the best hitter, not necessarily the best player, in baseball... even though most of the time we do invariably say the best hitter in the game is the best player in the game.
Even if someone wants to show me that he has the higest WAR in the game, including pitchers, I'm still going to be stubborn and say that he's had the best season up to this point, but that doesn't necessarily make him the best player.
When there was a debate in the 90s before Barry went on the juice about whether Bonds or Griffey was the best in the game, a lot of it was of course fueled by the offensive numbers they put up. In fact almost all of it was. But they could also be considered the best player(s) because they each had an impact defensively out in the field as well.
As far as I can tell, Bautista has no major impact defensively. Unless someone can show me otherwise, he's just another guy out there. No superior speed, no cannon arm, no outstanding range and fly tracking abilities.
Even if one wanted to take a pure statistical argument, if there is a player (and I don't know that there is) who's combined value offensively [B]and [B] defensively matches or exceed's Bautista's, then you might say he's the best player in the game and not Bautista.
But to me, it's simple. Less than one half of a season's worth of games, of even adding in last season for Bautista still does not make him the best player for me.
You've got to do it longer than that. If Bautista next season hits .270 with 21 home runs and 75 RBI's (and I know those are traditional "counting stats"), then if he does that over the course of a full season it's hard to say he's the best player in the game. We'll look back and say he had maybe two incredible seasons back to back, but that will be the extent of it.
For me, the title best player in the game is reserved for a guy who does it year after year after year with a proven track record. Guys like Bonds juiced or maybe unjuiced, or Griffey Jr, or Pujols, or Alex Rodriguez juiced or maybe unjuiced. But less than 1.5 seasons thus far of some great numbers is not best in the game stuff for me. You're not looking at Bautista's career and saying "Hall of Fame" and since he is a late bloomer it's hard to imagine you ever will.
hes the best player right now. i didnt say he was the best player last year or btw 2004-2009. Its not like Joey Votto has put up 4-5 years of MVP quality baseball he did that for now 1& half years. The same amount as Batista.
he has the highest OPS, SLG, OBP in baseball. hes just hit his prime and no reason to think a guy who is dedicated enough to figure out his offensive issues this late in his career doesnt have another 4-6 years of prime baseball left.
Now none of that means i would trade votto. votto still is the face of the organization and that value is worth something. but in a vaccuum batista is the best player right now. Its like trading Peyton Manning for Brady. Theres really no upside either way. the guy each team already has is gonna be more value to them than vice versa.
Last edited by webbbj; 06-18-2011 at 10:30 PM.
Yes, but with all due respect, I think there's a substantial difference between Votto and Bautista when you say they both have 1 and a half years of MVP quality baseball to their names.
Number 1, Votto is still younger than Bautista. If you're saying Bautista is in his prime at 30 (and he clearly is), at age 27 Votto should actually be entering his prime years, and he's already put up great numbers.
Number 2, Bautista had shown himself to be a average or just above player who of all organizations the Pittsburgh Pirates had given up on. While he indeed may very well have another 4-6 years of great production, on the other hand he may not. I know, that's an easy wuss out statement. But Bautista is just a weird case that has caused a lot of people to debate about whether he's chemically enhanced or just finally figured it out. Fwiw, I tend to give Bautista the benefit of the doubt and say he figured it out. But it took him several very average plate appearances at the major league level to do that.
Votto has been on a solid path since he arrived in the majors and OPS'ed at a .907 clip in 24 games in 2007 then was runner up for rookie of the year in 2008. Again according to baseball reference his comps through age 26 included guys like Jeff Bagwell, Lance Berkman,Matt Holliday,Tim Salmon, Todd Helton, and Norm Cash. That ain't too shabby. Not necessarily Hall of Fame types, but some might be in Bagwell, Berkman, and Helton... maybe even Holliday. Interesting to see a couple of former Reds in there like Sean Casey and Kal Daniels too. But all in all, pretty impressive names.
So in short, some of us just have a hard time saying Bautista is the best in the game... although I can come closer to accepting the argument that he's the best right now. But even with that, when you base it just off of those stats, it's funny because in 2 or 3 months someone could get hot, Bautista could cool off, and by those same standards that other guy becomes the best player in the game 2 months later.
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