“That’s it. I’m Done.”
Joey Votto is one of the greatest hitters we’ve ever seen…
Let’s take this slowly: In the history of baseball, there are 293 players who have had 8,000 plate appearances, ranging from Pete Rose (15,890 PAs, almost 2,000 more than second-place Yaz) to Jimmy Wynn (8,011 plate appearances).
Let’s pause on this point: You have to be elite to get 8,000 plate appearances in the big leagues. At the moment, there are only four active players with 8,000. They are:
8-time All-Star and former MVP Freddie Freeman
7-time All-Star and former MVP Paul Goldschmidt
5-time All-Star and former MVP Andrew McCutchen
1-time All-Star and 15-year vet Carlos Santana
So, again, we’re talking about elite players. Of the 293 players with 8,000 plate appearances, 42% are in the Hall of Fame, and almost 100% played in at least one All-Star Game.*
*Of the 59 players who did not play in an All-Star Game, 55 played before there was an All-Star Game. The only four in the last 90 or so years who have 8,000 PAs without a single All-Star Game: Juan Pierre, Orlando Cabrera, Todd Zeile and Tony Phillips, all excellent players.
Now we take the next step: Of those 293 terrific players, a little less than 10%—29, to be exact—have a career .400 on-base percentage. If you had to pick one simple hitting statistic to define greatness, on-base percentage would probably be it. The job, more than anything, is not making an out. So, these 29 are the best of the best of the best, Ruth and Williams and Gehrig and Cobb and Hornsby and Musial and Mantle and so on and so on.
Even Mays and Aaron and Pujols and Griffey and Wagner and Griffey and Morgan and Schmidt and Gwynn and Frank Robinson didn’t have .400 on-base percentages.
Of those 29 players with 8,000 plate appearances and .400 on-base percentages, 26 are in the Hall of Fame.
The only three who are not in the Hall of Fame, at least so far:
Barry Bonds, obviously
Manny Ramirez, obviously
Joey Votto
All of this is to tell you that a hitting genius retired on Wednesday. Damn, I’m going to miss watching Joey Votto hit.
Joseph Votto—as he is listed, by request, in my iPhone contact list—probably suffered more for his craft than