The 2017 Reds cannot afford nice things.

billy hamilton vs the pirates: 46 stolen bases (8 caught) in 52 games

at least he only hit a three-run homer and a triple tonight

Rough night for the Buc's pitchers. Hamilton has been playing well the last few weeks while the rest of the lineup has been pretty meh. If he gets on base with regularity, they usually score quite a bit more.

Votto explained his Players Weekend jersey nickname choice, a homage to former #reds teammate Shin-Soo Choo. pic.twitter.com/yawlj0PtWT

— Mark Sheldon (@m_sheldon) August 9, 2017

Votto doubled into a four-man outfield?!

Four-outfielder alignment vs. Votto foiled by double down first base line pic.twitter.com/gjGP027psL

— Mark Gonzales (@MDGonzales) August 15, 2017

if they're playing him to pull so much (at least on the IF), why leave such a gap to the right of RF? their 4-man OF (which i've never seen btw) is actually shifted to the left, overall. maybe analytics show that he pulls to the IF, but tends to hit to the opposite field to the OF when he's in a shift, or something?

Joey Votto has reached base at least twice in 19 straight games. He's 2 shy of the modern MLB record held by Ted Williams. (h/t Elias) pic.twitter.com/4205td4g8D

— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) August 15, 2017

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/joey-votto-faced-a-four-man-outfield/

Joey Votto is doing that thing again. You know, that thing where he doesn’t make outs. That thing where he makes himself the one guy on the Reds worth watching on a regular basis. Under even normal circumstances, Votto is arguably the game’s best hitter. Over the past three weeks or so, Votto’s caught fire. He’s led baseball in average, wRC+, and OBP, surpassing second place in the latter stat by damn near 100 points. In case you haven’t heard, Votto has reached base at least two times for 19 games in a row. Only Ted Williams, Pete Rose, and Barry Bonds have put together longer such streaks, and Williams’ leading streak is but two games away.

wow can't believe k3v blocked me

i don't care, jim calhoun still sucks

haha i don't disagree

https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2017/8/15/16154846/joey-votto-throws-baseball-out-of-wrigley-field-again-yes-really

Joey Votto throws baseball out of Wrigley Field again yes really

it's so beautiful.

so beautiful.

omg what a goof

i love him, obviously

he only got on once tonight ;_;

hit the ball really hard a couple of times and had bad luck!

If the Golden Sombrero is 0-4 with 4 ks, I'm kinda thinking the Golden Mountie Hat is what you get when you go 0-0 with 5 walks like Votto did today.

<3

votto had a 195 wRC+ in august with a 26% BB rate and a 12% K rate

One of the Reds beat writers brought up that teams are pretty much not pitching to Votto yet seemingly still throwing strikes into Stanton.

yesterday i saw him, with two strikes, choke up on the bat more than i've ever seen a major leaguer do. later he hit his 34th homer and high-fived (and gave his bat to) a sick kid behind home plate

i'm not sure if it's good or not that a) he and his contract are stuck on a bad team that's largely out of view b) our concentration on WAR makes us overlook how incredible a hitter he is. i mean the fuckin guy wasn't even an all-star in 2015 or 2016 despite remarkable numbers

when i was a kid, the 1986 sports illustrated baseball preview

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51KnelcLWEL._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

featured a conversation about hitting between don mattingly, wade boggs and ted williams. (i re-read it each spring until i stopped playing.) but good lord i would watch/read *anything* joey votto had to say about hitting, all by himself

now YOU want to marry him!

but yeah he's a savant and seemingly a cool dude. hopefully we get another 5 good years out of him

lol maybe

1b is such a loaded position, you could make an argument he might not have deserved All Star team for the previous two years. Keep in mind, JV was pretty much terrible the first two months of last year and THEN hit nearly .400 for the rest of the way. I think even Votto would also agree his defense has not been as good those two seasons either.

I do think Votto is a wizard at the plate in a similar way to Boggs and Gwynn with more power, even more so that he seems to have become so hard to strike out. Frank Thomas at his peak was also similar in that he was hard to strike out, had big power and drew walks left and right.

Looking at him, I kinda think Yaz is perhaps the most similar player in style out there. Yaz was much better at an early age, but they both play the same position and had a similar outlook and results. Definitely hope that Votto can continue to play well like Yaztremski did later in his career.

http://www.fangraphs.com/leaderssplits.aspx?splitArr=&strgroup=season&statgroup=2&startDate=1900-03-01&endDate=2017-11-01&filter=K%25%7Clt%7C0.12,BB%25%7Cgt%7C0.18,PA%7Cgt%7C400&position=B&statType=player&autoPt=true&sort=16,1&pg=0

i'm sure that link would have me very impressed with joey votto if it worked

hmm, it's working for me, try to copy & paste?

votto is having the 8th season ever with a BB% > 18 and a K% < 12 (bonds 5x, helton, brian giles the others)

oh for some reason fangraphs in its entirety was down for me

BRONSON ARROYO POST-GAME CONCERT SEPT. 23

Deck McGuire is a good baseball player name

they also have homer bailey and rookie davis

it's seriously like a 1988 baseball videogame in Cincinnati

Votto played all 162 games this year, wow.

First Red to start all 162 since Pete Rose back in the mid 70s. Votto had a season a few years back he played in every game, but he pinch hit in a few of them.

Billy Hamilton's yearly stolen base totals are my favorite pattern in baseball now.

2014: 56
2015: 57
2016: 58
2017: 59

— Michael Clair (@michaelsclair) October 2, 2017

he just wants to keep setting personal records without making it too hard the next year, v smart