We are aware that naming a potential Hall of Famer and popular player like Joey Votto as a Swing Badder nominee may be suspect but let us look at the numbers. The Reds signed their best player to a 10 year contract. In his second season, he was injured and only played 62 games. The next 3 seasons were typical Joey Votto. He batted over .300 averaging over 30 home runs a year. He had 4 out of 5 great seasons.
Then the decline started. In the next 4 seasons his highest batting average was .284 hitting under 20 home runs until the 9th year of the contract. In these 4 seasons his average has been in the .260 range with a low of ,226 in season 8. Although he did hit 36 home runs in his 9th season, the batting average which was always over .300 was now in its new position of .266.
The summary is this. Joey Votto has only had 4 seasons out of 8 where he performed at his All Star status. He has one more year left in the contract when he will be 39 years old. If the Reds thought they were going to get 8 or 9 stellar seasons, they were wrong; they received 4 All Star seasons so far.
