Not buying the Jason Bartlett chemistry angle

Jason Bartlett's comeback attempt after sitting out 2013 was a curiosity when Spring Training began. And when the NRI invite by the Minnesota Twins turned into a spring without any hits, the thought was the comeback attempt was doomed as much as Abreu's was with the Phillies. But despite a 3 for 36 spring, Bartlett has made the Twins!? This linked article describes the decision as due to Bartlett's flexibility and what he can add to the chemistry of the team. Are you buying that?

I, for one, am not. There are only two possibilities at work here. The first is that the Twins actually believe in this chemistry thing and, as the article linked above states, feel the team needs leadership to move forward or this reeks of a team helping an old friend reach his tenth year of Major League service thereby qualifying for the added retirement benefits such a milestone gives a player.

Let's look at the possibilities one at a time.

Let's say that the team is serious about this chemistry thing. The first thing this says is that the team does not believe in the leadership abilities of Joe Mauer and some of the other veterans. That makes Mauer and others a symptom of a "losing environment." Is that a fair assessment because the team has fallen on hard times? Is that a good message about Mauer and others?

How much stock is put in this "chemistry" or "leadership" thing? Can players who no longer have the ability to perform at a Major League level really respected by their teammates? Let's say you and me are working in a factory on an assembly line or something and one of our co-workers is a veteran of many years but can no longer keep up with the things we do. Do we respect that? Maybe. Maybe not.

Nobody predicts the Twins to make significant gains this season. The team may be a couple of years off from being competitive again. Does a stopgap "chemistry" guy like Bartlett make much difference in what will happen years from now? I cannot buy it or wrap my head around it.

I know from what many former players say that most believe that "good clubhouse guys" are a legitimate concept for players. But does that really mean anything? Kevin Millar was a great clubhouse guy for the Red Sox when he was producing. Did his shtick still mean the same when he was no longer able to produce? I don't think so.

Bartlett says that he learned about clubhouse dynamics from Torii Hunter. Didn't Hunter throw his ex-Twin teammates under the bus when he said they were afraid of the Yankees? I don't know. It seems to me that perhaps there is something to be said for veterans who can "police" a clubhouse. But leadership comes from the managers and coaches, or it should. Is Gardenhire the right guy for this current situation? Does Bartlett really help him if he can no longer contribute as a player?

Bartlett was not in the Majors last year because he career basically sank beneath the waves. After his one very good year in 2009, his career and wRC+ sank like a rock and his defense suffered toward the end too. You could blame his spring to rust after missing a year. But three singles in thirty-six plate appearances is perhaps more rust than can be scraped off.

My feeling is that all this talk is nice, but is a smokescreen for what is really happening here. Bartlett was sitting at home and at some point said to himself, "Hmm, I need another year to guarantee me $100,000 for a pension." He then called some old friends like Terry Ryan and said, "Hey, can I come to Spring Training?"

Ryan, needing all the help he could get took the flier and perhaps was complicit in his old friend's desire for one more year of service. I would not have trouble with any of that if Bartlett could still contribute. But I don't think he can. Perhaps I will be proven wrong and eat my words. If so, great for the Twins and good on Bartlett. But I wouldn't take a bet on it.

The bottom line for me has always been the same. Any team in question has a moral obligation to paying customers to put the best product out the team can. Whatever reason Jason Bartlett is on the team, whether it be as a "chemistry" teacher or as a guy getting a break to get his ten-year plateau in, is not fulfilling that obligation.  That's just my two cents and a cup of coffee.

If Bartlett doesn't last more than a couple of months on the team before being jettisoned, then we will have our answer and it will stink a bit. Because a chemistry teacher needs more time than that if you believe in such things.

Josh Thole's knuckleball mitt beats out Kratz's bat

The Toronto Blue Jays made their decision on a backup catcher yesterday when they kept Josh Thole and sent Erik Kratz to the minors. From the outside looking it, it appears that Thole's one skill set determined the outcome--his experience with R.A. Dickey.

I should say in advance that I was rooting for Erik Kratz. So anything I write on this subject could be prejudicial. I admit it. I was rooting for Kratz because of his perseverance.  The guy toiled in the minor leagues for twelve years and finally received a real taste of the Majors for the Phillies in 2012 and 2013.

Someone who spends twelve years in the minors and parts of eight seasons in Triple-A seem to deserve a shot. That kind of career is as blue collar as his name. And Kratz has shown some pop in his brief Major League experiences. He hit nine homers in each of his last two seasons with the Phillies or eighteen in just 378 at bats.

But Josh Thole has been R.A. Dickey's personal catcher for three years now. Thole seems willing to put on the knuckleball mitt and try to catch butterflies. And it seems understandable to a point. After all, Thole has caught 70 of Dickey's 102 starts since 2011.

There has to be a comfort factor for Dickey with Thole. His ERA when pitching to Arencibia or Blanco last year were much higher than with Thole. And that holds true with the last three seasons with the exception of Mike Nickeas who caught him more successfully than even Thole when with the Mets. Nickeas is also with the Blue Jays organization now which is not really a surprise.

It would take some study which I don't have time for this morning to see if Thole has actually been more successful catching Dickey than others (passed balls, wild pitches, caught steals, etc.). Doing so would perhaps prove or disprove the catcher ERA thing.

But one thing is known: Josh Thole is going downhill as an offensive player. His OPS has gone down for four years in a row and fell into the abyss last season at .497. Ouch. Kratz, meanwhile had hit .400 this spring and could have added some pop into the Blue Jays' lineup when he played. That is something Thole could not give them.

The question lies open on whether Dickey's comfort level and success with Josh Thole is worth the ten or so runs the Blue Jays will lose with Kratz's offense. Without further study, I cannot answer the question. I just know that I am bummed for Erik Kratz.

The crystal ball shows us all

Here at the FanDome, Crystal Ball Day is the same as Groundhog Day. It only happens once a year, people are mildly curious about what happens and then everybody forgets all about it. This is my sixth year doing this post right before the start of the season. The old sphere doesn't pass the biblical test because it's only correct about 37% of the time. Even my game picks do better than that. Despite all that, let's take a deep gaze and see what we can see.

• Derek Jeter will play more games than Jose Reyes.
• Phil Hughes will win thirteen games for the Twins.
• Albert Pujols puts up a .900 OPS.
• The Angels will be the best team in the AL West.
• Don Mattingly will say everything is fine between him and Yasiel Puig at least 64 times during the season.
• Puig will have more steals than TOOTBLANs, but not by much.
• Billy Hamilton will have an OBP of .305 and steal 80 bases. Reds fans will still think that's better than Choo.
• My wife will call Dustin Pedroia, "Jammy Pants," at least 78 times during the season. She'll call David Ortiz, "Big Poopy," half as many times.
• Brian Roberts will play more games than Steve Lombardozzi and have a higher WAR.
• Chris Davis will hit 38 homers.
• Ryan Howard will drive in 100 runs and still be worth less than 2.5 wins.
• The Rangers will come in third place in the AL West.
• I will win the It's About the Money fantasy league and then will not believe it was my first time ever playing.
• Instant Replay will cut down manager ejections by 67%.
• A.J. Pierzynski will still block the plate and get away with it.
• David Robertson will have 40 saves and blow six of them and people will think he's terrible.
• The Padres will play over .500 baseball and the Rockies will come in last place.
• Every team in the AL East will finish the season with an 84-78 record.
• The Cleveland Indians will push hard for the division despite not being able to beat the Tigers.
• Starlin Castro will not be the starting shortstop for the Cubs by the All Star Break.
• Wil Myers will have a higher OPS than Evan Longoria.
• John Mayberry will forever be in in RFD (Ryne's freakin' doghouse).
• Adam Dunn gets traded by the trade deadline. The Brewers will get him.
• Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion will combine for 80 homers.
• Matt Harvey will pitch in September.
• Madison Bumgarner and Stephen Strasburg will really challenge Clayton Kershaw for the NL Cy Young Award.
• Tim Hudson will win twelve games for the Giants.
• For the fourth year in a row, I will have no idea who lives in the MLB Fan Cave and that is fine with me.
• The Twins' home opener will feature music from the movie, Frozen.
• Several White Sox youngsters will have good seasons and give the fan base hope.
• For the fourth year in a row, Alcides Escobar will have more stolen bases than walks.
• The NL East finish: Nats, Braves, Mets, Marlins, Phillies.
• Josh Johnson will come back and pitch a complete game shutout and then hurt himself flinching from a pie in the face.
• Randy Wolf will get ten starts someplace.
• Max Scherzer will again win the Cy Young Award. But Justin Verlander has better pillow talk.
• At least one of Joe Maddon's road trip ideas will be a complete dud.
• The Dodgers will have a Kangaroo Court and Zack Greinke won't want to go.
• A GM will get fired this year. Contenders: Seattle's, Dbacks' or Phillies'.
• There will be 3,258,393 hyperbolic statements about Derek Jeter this year from broadcast booths around the country.
• Giancarlo Stanton will hit 35 homers but miss 40 games due to leg injuries.
• The NL West will finish: Dodgers, Giants, Padres, Dbacks, Rockies.
• Matt Carpenter will have a slightly disappointing offensive season.
• Buster Posey will win the batting title.
• Joey Votto will drive in 90 runs and nobody will be happy with him.
• Adrian Gonzalez will still be my least favorite player.
• Josh Hamilton will have a very good season.
• The Mariners will struggle not because of their offense but because of their pitching.
• Ryan Zimmerman will play first more than third this year.
• The Yankees will trade a catcher by the deadline.
• Bill Cowher and Kirk Gibson will create a new reality show and try to out intense face each other.
• The Carlos Santana third base thing will work out okay.
• The Houston Astros will win 74 games.
• The NL Central will finish: Cards, Pirates, Reds, Brewers, Cubs.
• Ryan Braun will have a great season.
• The AL Central will finish: Indians, Tigers, Royals, White Sox, Twins.
• Ron Washington will bunt no matter what those numbers guys say.
• Adeiny Hechavarria will have a slugging percentage over .300 this year. But not by much.
• Aroldis Chapman will throw a pitch 100 MPH and staples will be flying everywhere like that witch in the Bugs Bunny cartoons.
• Aaron Harang will make Braves' fans pine for the days of Freddy Garcia.
• Freddie Freeman will have a better season than Paul Goldschmidt.
• The Padres won't trade Chase Headley because they will be in the wild card hunt.
• The AL West will finish: Angels, A's, Mariners, Rangers, Astros.
• Chone Figgins will be a nice story this season.
• Jose Molina will share his framing secret as pretending the baseball is a moon pie.
• Dexter Fowler will have a season to make the Rockies look idiotic.
• Manny Machado will surprise us all with how many games he plays and how well he does.
• Yunel Escobar will turn back into Yunel Escobar.
• The Phillies will work out trades for both Cliff Lee and Jimmy Rollins and both will say no and refuse to go.
• Tanaka will win rookie of the year and everyone will say the rules need to change.
• PED suspensions will become tougher thereby punishing Hispanic players even more.
• The Rockies will have a problem with pot in the stands.
• And last but not least, Mike Trout will again be the best player in baseball and still not win the MVP Award.

Happy Baseball Season!

The quiet quality of Cliff Lee

The Philadelphia Phillies won 102 games in 2011 and won the National League East. That season completed a two-season arc that saw the team win 199 games. That seems so long ago. In the last two seasons, the team won only 154 games and has fallen into the also-ran status. None of that can be blamed on Cliff Lee. Lee has been basically the same pitcher from the good times to the bad.

How well Cliff Lee has done has gotten lost in the shuffle. I am newly aware of fantasy baseball rankings as I have begun my first adventure in that world. It struck me odd that Lee was owned by 99% in leagues. Shouldn't that be 100%? The guy is the closest thing there is to a metronome in pitching. Year in and year out, his peripherals rarely vary.

Everybody knows that Cliff Lee does not walk people. But they also forget that he strikes out batters to the tune of one an inning. Just look at his K/9 rate over the last three years respectively: 9.2, 8.8 and 9.0. You cannot get more consistent than that. I just looked at his spring numbers. His K/9 rate this spring is 8.7. The metronome.

He has led the National League (and probably baseball) in strikeout to walk ratio in each of the last two years and three of the last five. Over the last four years, he has struck out 852 batters and walked only 120. That is a four year average of 7.1 strikeouts per walk. Amazing.

Cliff Lee has also been reliable as they come. He has six straight seasons of over 200 innings. His WHIP in his four years with the Phillies has been 1.058. He has made a lot of money. And he has earned it.

In his four years  with the Phillies, Lee's FIP has been under 3.00 three times and has never been higher than 3.13.  And somehow, he has kept getting better as he has gotten older. His rate of getting batters to swing at pitches out of the strike zone has never been higher than it has been the past four years. His rate of getting first-pitch strikes has never been as high as the last four years. His swinging strike rate has never been higher than the last four years.

Throughout his time with the Phillies, he has never been considered the Number One pitcher on his team. There was Halladay, who was brilliant and there was Hamels, who shined off and on. But Halladay is gone, Hamels struggled in 2013 and is starting slow with injuries this year. Through it all, Cliff Lee has been the pitcher to count on.

There has been a lot of talk this spring about the Phillies trading Cliff Lee. After all, they do not appear to be going anywhere presently. The team could eat a lot of the money and still save and perhaps get prospects in return. And that might be a good thing for Lee, though he might not see it that way.

And that's because Cliff Lee should be pitching to more glory than he is. Since the Phillies have fallen on hard times, he has been forgotten a bit. And that is a shame. Because Cliff Lee has been fantastic.

Over the past six seasons, his rWAR has been 37.5 or 6.25 rWAR per season. Fangraphs has him at 37.1 or 6.12 fWAR over the same period. That is a half dozen years of wonderful quality. The projections do not expect him to slow down much despite the fact that he is now 35 years old. And if this spring is any indication, Cliff Lee just keeps rolling and dealing.

It is just too bad that he might be doing so for a team going nowhere.

My first ever fantasy baseball team drafted

My colleagues over at It's About the Money twisted my arm into playing fantasy baseball. I resisted the urge to tap into my many Twitter buds who specialize in such things and decided to see how I could do on my own. There are twelve teams in the league and I went first, which means long stretches in between picks.

Here is my team. What do you think?

• C - Wilin Rosario
• 1B - Albert Pujols
• 2B - Ian Kinsler
• 3B - Josh Donaldson
• SS - Ian Desmond
• OF - Mike Trout
• OF - Wil Myers
• OF - Jayson Werth
• UT - Xander Bogaerts
• UT - Jedd Gyorko
• SP - Stephen Strasburg
• SP - Ivan Nova
• RP - Tommy Hunter
• RP - J.P. Howell
• P - Francisco Liriano
• P - Yovani Gallardo
• P - Scott Kazmir
• P - Ryan Cook
• BN - Evan Gattis
• BN - Adam Eaton
• BN - Matt Adams
• BN - Avisail Garcia
• BN - George Springer

Apparently, my only real problem is that Ryan Cook is heading to the DL. I hadn't heard that. So it is what it is.

What do you think? I would love to hear from my expert friends to tell me about my team. This is a one-year league. Not dynasty or anything fancy like that. We will see what happens.

Oh...by the way...My team's name is, "Nights in Josh Satin."  #MoodyBlues

Francoeur and Loe cuts are costly

Jeff Francoeur and Kameron Loe were released today by their respective teams. Apparently Loe requested the release since he was not going to make the team. The loss of jobs for these two players run deeper than just not having a job for 2014. Both players have nine years of service time and need one more year to qualify for the ten year pension of $100,000 annually.

The pension can be explained here.

The tenth year of MLB service is an important milestone and might be a further insight into the comeback attempts of Jason Bartlett and Matt Treanor. Neither played in the Majors in 2013 and both have nine years of MLB service.

The last few years of players whose careers ended after nine seasons:

2012:

• Jason Bartlett
• Matt Treanor
• Brian Bruney
• Jose Lopez

2011:

• John Grabow
• Rich Harden
• Aaron Heilman
• Wil Ledezma
• Aaron Miles

2010

• Hank Blalock
• Brendan Donnelly
• Carlos Silva
• Jorge Sosa

MLB Game Picks - Saturday: March 22, 2014

And so it begins...and then ends...and then will begin again in a week. Ah! You have got to love this playing overseas as a false season starter for a tease. Someday, Opening Day will actually mean opening day and it will be one day and all teams will be playing...a day game! And it will be a national holiday.

For those of you new to this space, during the regular season and then the post season, I pick the winners of each game played. No, this is not an odds feature or a gambling feature. This is one guy trying to see how he will do picking games over the course of a season. This will be the fifth season...or is it sixth? Who knows, I lose track.

What I do know is that I have not missed a day or a game in three and a half years. Call me the Cal Ripken of game picking. Or maybe the Rip Van Winkle. I have been doing this site so long I am like a graybeard or something.

Anyway, enough chatter. There are two games to pick. Both involve the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Arizona Diamondbacks who open a crazy two-game set in Australia and with the time difference, they occur in the same day here on the East Coast. One starts at four o'clock in the morning and the next at ten o'clock in the evening.

The picks:

• The Dodgers over the Diamondbacks: Clayton Kershaw is the best pitcher in baseball tasked with being the prize of the USA in a foreign land. That won't get screwed up. Wade Miley is not exactly in that same class. Miley has had a very good spring though.
• The Dodgers over the Diamondbacks: If my picks turn out correctly, that's a heck of a long plane ride back for the D-backs. That said, wouldn't you take Hyun-jin Ryu over Trevor Cahill? Unlike Miley, Cahill has not had a good spring at all, though his K/BB looks great.

The first two picks of the season! It's too bad it will take a week to report how well I did.

The White Sox should just go young

The Chicago White Sox lost 99 games last year and according to most projections, will not be very good this year either. Most projections I have seen have them coming in with about 88 losses this season. That being the case, it seems to me that the White Sox best course of action at this point is to go young, stay young and build the next good White Sox team. But...they won't.

Why? Because teams and managers get hung up on veterans. Experienced players are more trusted and are more of a known entity. Managers like Robin Ventura, a former player, would naturally side with regulars from the past. Ventura himself hung on for years after his best days were gone and that becomes part of the fabric of how things work.

The thing is, you can lose with the veterans or you can lose with the youth. Either way, you lose. So you have to go deeper than that and determine the benefits of either. Let's weigh them out.

Losing with veterans: Fans are familiar with the players and have some contextual feelings of rooting for the familiar. Is this going to make enough fans happy to reverse recent attendance losses? Not really. Keep young players in the minors long enough to delay their clocks and maintain their rights longer. Does this really work?

What if the latest research is right in that a ball player's peak isn't 28 like previously believed, but rather 24? Aren't you risking leaving some of the player's best time in the minors by delaying them?

I suppose you could also add that young players cannot get discouraged by failing in their early years in the Majors. Do you buy that? I don't.

Losing with youth: The young learn in the Majors and with live game experiences. They get used to playing together as a unit and build in unity and develop into a unit that can learn how to win together.

If you go with young, you need some veterans around to help, right? Sure. One or two maybe. Teaching young players how to handled themselves in the big leagues does help. But do you need a bunch of also-rans who cannot win for you to teach that? I don't think so.

All that said, if I ran the White Sox, this is what I would do. First, I would ditch or try to trade Adam Dunn and Jeff Keppinger. Both players provide little or no value and in both cases, hold up roster spots for the young guys. Dunn has hit 75 homers combined over the last two seasons. Great. But he has been worth 0.9 rWAR in that time. Big deal.

Dunn became moot with the signing of Jose Abreu. How many lumbering 1B/DH types do you need on one team? He is also in the last year of his contract. Jettison him to Seattle or just dump him. What difference does it make?

Jeff Keppinger is signed through 2015. Egads! That was a bad signing. Keppinger has not had an on-base percentage over .300 in two of his last three seasons. He was worth -2.0 rWAR last year. His shoulder is toast and it shows this spring. He will not an cannot help the White Sox. Why hold back a roster spot for that? Cut your losses and DFA him.

Trade Alexei Ramirez. Ramirez is still a decent player. He was the eighth best shortstop in baseball last season. There is value in that. But again, the White Sox are not going to win. Ramirez is 31 and at a peak in value for other teams desperate for a shortstop. The Tigers come to mind. Trade him for something that can help down the road.

If I ran the White Sox, Matt Davidson would platoon with Conor Gillaspie and rotate in the DH position with Paul Konerko (who needs to play and be celebrated in this his last season). Install Marcus Semien at short and see if he is your guy and if not, then move on to Tim Anderson in 2015 if Semien doesn't cut it.

In the outfield, put Jordan Danks, Adam Eaton in left and center respectively and rotate De Aza and Avisail Garcia. Trade Dayan Viciedo to the Mariners or somewhere.

I thought it very discouraging to see the team send down left-handed starter, Eric Surcamp. He misses bats and he does not walk people. No, his two cups of coffee with the Giants did not work out well, but the guy can win in the Majors. Does anyone really think John Danks is going to turn it around any time soon? I don't. Surcamp is 25-years-old. Another stint in the minors is unnecessary.

The depth charts do list Erik Johnson as part of the rotation. That is good at least. It is definitely time to see what he can do.

The White Sox are not going anywhere either way. So why not go young and get these guys Major League experience, let them grow together and build something that can make the White Sox relevant two or three years from now? And for the fan experiences, it sure seems better than watching Adam Dunn and Jeff Keppinger grow old.

Rival Roundup - The Yankees against the AL East

I just concluded a four-part series over at It's About the Money, Stupid that compared the current Yankees to their four rivals in the American League East.

The first part covered the Baltimore Orioles. Questions answered were:

• What does the Orioles' rotation look like?
• Will Chris Davis regress?
• How will Manny Machado recover from his injury?

The second part covered the Tampa Bay Rays. Questions considered:

• Is this the year Desmond Jennings breaks out?
• Is the Rays rotation even stronger with Jeremy Hellickson being out with injury?
• How does Joe Girardi compare with Joe Maddon?

The third segment covered the Toronto Blue Jays. Thing to ponder included:

• Is the rotation still a mess and can Brandon Morrow rebound?
• Can Jose Reyes, Jose Bautista and Colby Rasmus stay healthy?
• Is Brett Lawrie ready to be a factor?

The last segment, of course, covered the Boston Red Sox. Observations about:

• Will David Ortiz ever age?
• Is Will Middlebrooks the answer at third?
• How old is Koji Uehara?

It was a fun series, and I hope you check out all the four parts of the series.

Joey Votto + walks = problem?

Twitter is a great place to gauge how fans really feel about baseball, their teams and their players. Sure, much of it is irrational. But being a fan is never really about rationality, right? Many of the strong feelings of fans on Twitter surprise me. One of those is the total hate many Reds fans feel about Joey Votto walking. Here are a couple of examples:

Two walk game for Joey Votto. Time to give up on the 2014 season. — Tyler (@iTyBan) March 9, 2014

I'm sick and tired of watching Joey Votto get walked every AB. Even in spring training. Go yack or go back to Canada bro. #SwingTheStick — Sage Kendall (@SAKtap24) March 9, 2014

Perhaps the fans are egged on by the broadcasters:

No matter the broadcast team we always get to hear about the lack of RBI from Joey Votto, don't we? — Doug Gray (@dougdirt24) March 9, 2014

I have a really hard time getting what the problem is here. The thinking behind it is that Votto does not drive in enough runs because he walks too much. The thinking must also mean that if Votto would swing more often, he would hit more for power and thus provide more offense.

Are those valid thought processes? First, let's talk about what we know. Votto's walks are part of an evolutionary process during his career. He has swung at less and less pitches out of the strike zone as his career has progressed: 2010 - 30.3%, 2011 - 25.6%, 2012 - 21.1% and 2013 - 21.0%.

2013 was the first time in Votto's career that he played all 162 games of the season. That dispelled some of the nonsense about his durability from the games he missed the season before that. Despite the extra games, his slugging percentage fell under .500 for the first time in his career.

But he also walked an incredible 135 times to push his on-base percentage to .435 and left him with the same wRC+ as his career average. In other words, he had what was an average offensive year (for him). His 6.4 rWAR / 6.2 fWAR stacked up very well with what he did in 2011, the last time he played a full season and the season before that.

In other words, he was just as valuable a player as 2010 and 2011, but many of his fan base, and (apparently) his team's announcers thought he was more of a hindrance to the Reds winning. I am not sure I follow.

The clutch thing might be part of the problem. I am not yet convinced the whole clutch thing is more than a coincidence. But there was a problem for Votto here in 2013. According to Fangraphs.com, Votto's clutch score (-2.38) was the first time in the last four years was in negative territory. And his WPA or win probability added was 3.77 which is much lower than the figures over six where he was for the previous three seasons.

He did have less success in high leverage situations in 2013 where he was murder in 2011 and 2012. In 2011, Votto's OPS in high leverage situations was an incredible 1.221. In 2012, it was even more incredible at 1.299. But he became just above mere mortal in 2013 with an OPS of .856 in high leverage situations.

So, there is evidence that Votto did not do as well in the clutch and in high leverage situations as he has done in the past. His critics point to the walks. His critics say that he would rather walk than drive in the run.

But what if luck was also involved? Back in 2011 and 2012 when those high leverage situations went incredibly well, his BABIP during those situations were .360 and .457. His BABIP in those situations in 2013 was .299. That could be due to bad luck, less quality of contact or better positioning from defenses (or a combination of all three).

There is another statistic created by Bill James and others called Runs Created. The statistic measures a player's total contribution to a team's run total. Votto's total of 133 was fourth in the Majors and was higher than Goldschmidt, Cano, Choo, Carpenter and McCutchen. So you cannot convince me that he had a bad year.

Oh, by the way, that Runs Created total of 133 was one more than he had in 2011 and only eleven less than he put together for 2010 when he led the Majors.

Joey Votto was on base an incredible 316 times in 2013. Trout was his closest competitor in that category at 309. The 316 times on base was the highest total since 2004 (Bonds).

If that is a disappointing season, then I am sure that there are a whole lot of other fan bases that would love to take him off of the Cincinnati fans' hands. If a guy gets on base 316 times and only has 73 runs batted in and only 101 runs scored, then I would look more at his teammates for blame than him.

Joey Votto is one of the truly elite offensive players in the game. Perhaps his contract makes people expect more. His play was worth $30.8 million in 2013 as a first baseman (which garners no positional love) versus his $17.5 million salary. And people are complaining? I don't get it. I don't get it at all.