'The end?' Votto showing no signs after resurgence

On May 2, coming off the most miserable month of his 16-year career, Joey Votto had a message for those who thought the 38-year-old’s standing as one of the best hitters in baseball was over. “Five months to go. Enjoy the show,” the Reds' first baseman tweeted referencing a FanGraphs article titled “Is This the End for Joey Votto?”

Votto was hitting .122 with a .413 OPS and one extra-base hit in 90 plate appearances when he hit the COVID IL the day after his viral tweet. By wRC+, April was the worst month of his career among those where he had at least 75 plate appearances. Votto’s seniority gave doubters even more fodder -- the late 30s aren’t kind to lumbering sluggers. With his age matching his wRC+ (38), it was hard to argue with anyone who claimed that to be so.

But Votto has seemingly declined and reinvented himself before. After a poor 2019 season (98 wRC+, 15 home runs) and a lackluster 2020 season (112 wRC+, .226 AVG), Votto recovered with a massive 36-homer, .938 OPS 2021 campaign at age 37. And after a terrible start to this season, Votto appears to be making another comeback.

Since recovering from COVID-19 and returning to the lineup May 20, Votto looks like his old self. He’s slashing .306/.419/.667 with 15 extra-base hits, including five home runs, and a 203 wRC+ since returning. After homering again Tuesday, Votto's full season wRC+ finally crept above 100 after toiling in the 30s through early May. His 1.086 OPS since returning is eighth in baseball among those with at least 60 plate appearances over that period.

So here’s a look at how Votto has engineered his latest comeback (All stats are through Saturday).

Crushing heaters (again)

Votto came into this season as one of the best fastball hitters in the game. His 202 Run Value (the run impact of an event based on the runners on base, outs and count) during the Statcast era prior to this season is second behind only Mike Trout among active players. Votto’s .427 wOBA vs. fastballs over that period is seventh among those with at least 1,000 plate appearances.

But this April, something came over the Reds legend that had him struggling against the hard ones. Votto hit .143 with just five hits against fastballs before his IL stint. His .171 slugging percentage against heaters was second worst in baseball among those with at least 40 plate appearances ending on a fastball during that period. If the season ended then, his -1.9 run value against fastballs would have been, by far, the worst of his career.

Since his May 20 return, Votto is back to his fastball-smashing ways. His +11.8 RV since returning is a full run higher than anyone else in baseball. The Reds first baseman is slugging .800 against them with 13 hits, 10 for extra bases (four home runs).

He’s hitting them harder (94.7 mph average exit velocity against fastballs post-COVID-IL stint vs. 91 mph pre-COVID IL) and lifting them in the air more often. Unsurprisingly, he’s barreling fastballs more than twice as often.

Air ball

Throughout his career, Votto has always hit the ball in the optimal spots. Through 2018, he had only seven infield popups for his entire career. He’s also avoided hitting the ball on the ground too often, which is a less-than-ideal result for a hitter of Votto’s power and speed. In 2021, for example, he ranked third in baseball among those with at least 200 batted balls with 62.7% of his balls in play being a line drive or fly ball.

But this April, Votto hit more than half of his balls in play on the ground (51.2%), which would be by far the highest of his career over a full season. In 2021, his ground-ball rate was just 39.1%.

And he wasn’t exactly scorching the ball when he did hit it on the ground. His 82.7 average exit velocity on ground balls through May 2 was much closer to Victor Robles, César Hernández and Starling Marte than it was to the Giancarlo Stantons and Aaron Judges of the world, leading to a lot of lazy grounders to the right side.

He's changed that during his recent hot streak. Votto is getting much more loft in the ball over the past few weeks, dropping his ground-ball rate to 30.3% since returning. Votto has hit a line drive or fly ball in nearly two-thirds of his balls in play since May 20, leading to his 15 extra-base hits since then. Just as importantly, Votto is just flat out hitting the ball harder as well. His 92.5 average exit velocity since May 20 would be the highest of his career. It was 86.4 mph pre-IL stint.

Controlling the zone

There may be no player this century this side of Barry Bonds more associated with excellent discipline at the plate than Votto. That reputation all but disappeared at the beginning of this year.

On the day of his tweet, Votto’s strikeout percentage sat at 32.2%, far outpacing his career-high rate of 23.8% that he posted last season. Among those with at least 75 plate appearances through that day, Votto was tied with Cody Bellinger for the ninth-highest strikeout rate in baseball.

It doesn’t appear that there was any one thing that caused Votto’s spike in strikeouts; rather, it was a confluence of several small changes. Votto’s chase, swing-and-miss, and foul-ball rate all ticked up slightly from last season during that first month -- leading to significantly more strikeouts overall.

Regardless, Votto is back to his 2021 self when it comes to his approach at the plate. Since mid-May, Votto is walking 15.1% of the time and striking out only 18.6% of his plate appearances, which would be the lowest full-season rate of his since 2018. He’s swinging and missing less (28.9% vs. 32%) and showing more patience (20.1% out-of-zone swing rate vs. 24.7%). Votto’s control of the strike zone -- his defining trait as a hitter -- is back, leading to better contact and more, of course, more hits.

Room to improve

Questioned by MLB.com’s Reds beat writer Mark Sheldon on Wednesday, Votto said his swing is “close” but “not quite there yet,” despite much better results compared to April.

If you ask Votto, his early-season slump came down to a couple of things. The main thing, as he indicated in late May, was an essential piece of equipment. Earlier in the season, the slugger tried out bats with a “hockey puck” knob, but found that the change in lumber wasn’t working out for him.

“I was dead set on using it. And, you know, you've got to fail,” Votto said. “It was an attempt and I failed. I'm back to the [ash] bat I normally use.”

The rest was more approach-based.

"Then a lack of concentration on contact and using the entire field,” Votto said in May. “I was pulling the ball too much. There is more specifics technically, but the essence of it, I just wasn’t making enough contact and I wasn't using enough of the field."

Votto has, indeed, been more balanced in where he’s hitting the ball since returning. After using the opposite field in just 13.3% of his balls in play before his IL stint, Votto has hit 26.4% of his batted balls the other way since returning, including two doubles and a home run.

Votto’s April was a combination of nightmares: He forgot how to hit his favorite pitch, his plate discipline waned, and when he did make contact, he pounded it into the dirt. That all changed after a couple of weeks off, which, he admits, may have helped.

“I was trying to shift focus, and maybe the pause helped. Maybe,” Votto said Wednesday. “But I’ve got too many experiences in the past where you problem-solve in real time. I don’t need a pause to fix the problem. I’ve played numerous, 159-plus-game seasons and had success and played through really cold stretches.

“I’m confident I can have as hot of a stretch as I’ve ever had in my career. That’s the plan.”