Yesterday, Joey Votto posted a video expressing gratitude for his time with the Cincinnati Reds. They drafted him in the second round in 2002, he debuted in September five years later, and he’s been with the Reds ever since.
Cincinnati’s president of operations, Nick Krall, said the move to decline his contract option for 2024 was purely about making sure there would be playing time for some of the team’s young up-and-comers. The 40-year-old Votto — who played just 65 games this year because of injury — wouldn’t get adequate time in the lineup, so it’s time to move on. Turning down Votto’s $20 million option for 2024 likely played a role in that decision as well. But either way, it feels a little like an era is coming to an abrupt and undeservedly unceremonious end.
In the video, Votto doesn’t definitively say that he is done playing baseball. He’s accomplished enough in 17 years in the major leagues to retire and be a candidate for the Hall of Fame. He could easily hang up his cleats and move into a broadcast booth. Spend some time watching clips of his visits to the TV booth in the press box and it’ll become evident pretty quickly that Votto would thrive there if he wanted. He’s sharp, funny, and knows baseball better than most. I suspect also that with his lifetime .920 OPS and over 2,000 career hits, plenty of organizations would grab the chance to have Votto on their coaching staff.
But let’s entertain the possibility that Votto decides to keep playing. It almost certainly would mean that he finishes his career with someone other than the Reds. That’s a little sad, to me, because players who spend their entire careers in one organization are a vanishing breed. Adam Wainwright just retired after 18 seasons with the Cardinals. Buster Posey spent 12 years with the Giants but has been retired since the end of the 2021 season. Joe Mauer has been out of baseball since 2018, but he spent all of his 15 years with the Twins. There are just a handful of active players who have spent their entire careers with one organization. Clayton Kershaw, who debuted with the Dodgers in 2008, has the longest running tenure. Those guys are vestiges of a long bygone era of baseball; the advent of free agency in the 1970s made it increasingly unlikely for a player to stay with one club his whole career.
So while in a practical sense I can see teams lining up to make an offer to Votto, a small part of me hopes he makes the decision to be done. Not because I don’t want to see him play anymore. I had the privilege of seeing Votto hit an infield pop fly once, something he has done only a handful of times in his career. An event so rare that it merited a press box announcement.
But for more than one reason, I hope Votto keeps playing.
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