Cowboy Votto helps build chemistry with 'Talent'

This story was excerpted from Mark Sheldon’s Reds Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

GOODYEAR, Ariz. -- Some of the more difficult questions to answer in Major League Baseball are these:

Does team chemistry matter?

Does a team that has fun win more games?

Does having a divided clubhouse hurt a team’s chances?

Through the decades, we’ve seen examples of teams with great camaraderie win the World Series and truly dysfunctional clubs do likewise. We’ve also seen both happy and disgruntled teams lose a lot of games. Winning is often the cure of most problems.

“To me, we don’t have to be friends, but we have to play as a unit on the field,” first baseman Joey Votto said last month as camp started. "I know personally -- and I’m not going to say names -- players that hated each other, despised each other, wouldn’t even acknowledge the other person’s full name, but at the end of a championship or World Series, they’re hugging each other.”

Manager David Bell is a believer in team building. That was missing in last year’s post-lockout abbreviated camp because the Reds purged several veterans and started a rebuild.

No one had time to be organizing activities in 2022.

“I'm convinced that beyond talent, which is a part of it, it is the one difference-maker that can help you, we'll call it ‘maximize' who you are as a team,” Bell said. “I don't know if it's possible to overachieve, but you can absolutely get the most out of who you are as a team when you're playing together, and you have each other's backs and enjoying one another and just playing together. I know for sure it is way more fun and I'm very convinced that you can play better.”

The clubhouse brought back its “Reds Got Talent” show last week and for the first time, started a three-point shooting basketball contest on Monday. A new hoop was installed at the complex with a three-point line painted on the surface from high school level distance.

Votto was one of the ringleaders for the talent show and even performed a Toby Keith country song. The winner, however, was utility player Alejo Lopez, who performed with a six-piece Mariachi band backing him.

Most of the team participated, including Jonathan India, Tyler Stephenson, Hunter Greene and Nick Lodolo. Bell and general manager Nick Krall were among coaches and staff that were also part of the competition. Each shooter had 45 seconds to sink baskets from three different racks, plus a bonus ball.

For those who say the team should focus only on baseball after a 100-loss season, these activities were held before or after workouts and didn’t cut into time on the field. Camp is six weeks and it’s often a grind.

With so many new and younger players on the team, Votto thinks these activities have value.

“It’s a good, in my opinion, team-building exercise,” Votto said last week. “The room stays light. Guys seem to transition into the work with a lightness. More importantly, we’re getting to know one another. The room is filled with the future of this uniform, the future of the Reds. We have to get to know one another, and they have to build these bonds that hopefully last the next decade.”