Joey Votto – best player on a bad team in the NL?

Phil Gurnee ♦ August 19, 2016 ♦ Leave a comment

Joey Votto has been one of the best hitters in baseball for almost a decade but in those ten years, his team has had limited success.  Only three times have they won at least 81 games and most of the time are out of the pennant race by August 19th, just as they are this year.

Other players on bad teams over the last nine years could be Mike Trout, Giancarlo Stanton(though that has changed this year), maybe Freddie Freeman.   I guess I could take each player and figure out the average wins for them per season.

Nah, I’m just going to say that Joey Votto is the best player on a bad team in the National League. That way I don’t have to play with Mike Trout and show how bad the Angels have been,  even with the best player in baseball on their team.

Votto’s calling card has always been an outstanding combination of power and patience.

Votto became a regular in 2008 so that is the timeframe we are going to use:

hmm – I’m going to have to expand the criteria because when I look for players who have hit at least 200 home runs and walked 800 times all I come up with is Joey Votto.

I guess I’ll just show the leaderboards for OPS+  since 2008:

If you use OPS+, Joey Votto has clearly been one of the most productive offensive players in baseball in the past nine years.  He has 100 more walks than anyone else in baseball during his run of 2008 – 2016.

That list has some heady company.  Hey look, Yasiel Puig right next to Matt Carpenter. Not bad for a AAA player.

From 2008 – 2016 – sorted by OPS+, with OPS+ > 130, with PA > 1000