1B · 2023

Joey Votto

Cincinnati Reds National League Central1B

Age: 40
B/T: L/R
Height: 6' 2"
Weight: 220 lb
Number: #19

Born: September 10, 1983 in Toronto, ON, Canada
MLB debut: September 4, 2007

dbWAR: 31.6
PA: 242
AVG: .202
OBP: .314
SLG: .433
wRC+: 105

Joey Votto was a first baseman for the Cincinnati Reds. In 2023 he hit 14 home runs and knocked in 38 RBIs, notching 42 hits across 242 plate appearances in 64 games. His batting average was .202, 18.7% lower than the league average of .248. He reached base at a .314 clip and slugged .433, for an OPS of .747, 1.7% higher than the league mark of .734 — 8th of 17 on his team, and 176th of 461 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 89.3 mph off the bat, hit 39.7% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 9.6% of them and made contact on 69.2% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 105 wRC+ puts his offence 5% above average. That comes to 0.3 dbWAR — +1.3 runs with the bat, -0.4 on the bases, -5.6 for the position he plays, against replacement level. It includes no fielding: defensive runs are proprietary and are not estimated here, so the figure credits playing a demanding position but not playing it well.

League context

Percentile among qualified batters, 2023.

wRC+105

wOBA.327

ISO.231

BB%11.2%

WAR.3

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2023. These four terms sum to +3.4 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.


2023	64	242	42	14	38	0	27	62	.202	.314	.433	.231	.212	11.2%	25.6%	.327	+1.3	105	0.3
2022	91	376	66	11	41	0	44	97	.205	.319	.370	.165	.257	11.7%	25.8%	.313	+0.4	96	0.4
2021	129	533	119	36	99	1	77	127	.266	.375	.563	.297	.287	14.4%	23.8%	.395	+34.8	143	4.1
2020	54	223	42	11	22	0	37	43	.226	.354	.446	.220	.235	16.6%	19.3%	.350	+5.4	115	0.8
2019	142	608	137	15	47	5	76	123	.261	.357	.411	.150	.313	12.5%	20.2%	.335	+6.3	107	1.3
2018	144	623	143	12	67	2	108	101	.284	.417	.419	.135	.333	17.3%	16.2%	.374	+28.3	134	3.6
2017	162	707	179	36	100	5	134	83	.320	.454	.578	.258	.321	19.0%	11.7%	.433	+64.2	174	7.1
2016	158	677	181	29	97	8	108	120	.326	.434	.550	.225	.366	16.0%	17.7%	.418	+51.9	166	6.1
2015	158	695	171	29	80	11	143	135	.314	.459	.541	.228	.371	20.6%	19.4%	.434	+64.3	176	7.8

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Season

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2023. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
Split	PA	AB	H	HR	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA	K%
vs LHP	57	45	10	4	9	13	.222	.386	.511	.389	22.8%
vs RHP	185	163	32	10	18	49	.196	.292	.411	.307	26.5%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2023.

Loading 145 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 146 tracked batted balls in 2023. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate: 9.6%
Exit velocity: 89.3
Max exit velo: 111.2
Hard hit: 39.7%
Sweet spot: 25.3%
Launch angle: 13.9°

Barrel rate9.6%

Exit velocity89.3 mph

Hard hit rate39.7%

Contact rate69.2%

A barrel is a batted ball whose exit velocity and launch angle have historically produced at least a .500 average and 1.500 slugging — 98 mph within 26–30°, widening to 8–50° by 116 mph. Reconstructed from Statcast's published anchor points, which reproduces them exactly; the interior is within a degree. Sweet spot (8–32°) is an exact definition.

Hot and cold zones

Batting average by pitch location, 2023.

Below averageLeague averageAbove average

Batting average by location of the pitch that ended each plate appearance, catcher's view. The bordered square is the strike zone; the outer band is chase territory. Cells with fewer than 8 at-bats are left grey rather than shown as signal. League average on the same attribution is .248.

Situational hitting

How Joey Votto hits by base state, outs, score and late-game pressure — each read against his own season line.

Split by

By who is on base when he comes up. The season line is repeated as the baseline.
Situation	PA	AB	H	HR	RBI	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA
All situations	242	—	—	—	—	—	—	.202	.314	.433	.327
Bases empty	143	121	21	7	7	18	34	.174	.301	.372	.301
Runner on first	46	38	7	1	3	6	16	.184	.326	.289	.291
Runners on	99	87	21	7	31	9	28	.241	.333	.517	.363
RISP	53	49	14	6	28	3	12	.286	.340	.694	.426

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2023.

Head to head

Put Joey Votto beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players

Joey Votto

Similar players

Nearest 2023 seasons by discipline, contact, power and speed, on rate statistics rather than totals.

Francisco AlvarezNYM

wRC+: 96
HR: 25
AVG: .209
WAR: 1.7

Giancarlo StantonNYY

wRC+: 85
HR: 24
AVG: .191
WAR: -0.4

Danny JansenTOR

wRC+: 115
HR: 17
AVG: .228
WAR: 1.8

Comparable

Cal RaleighSEA

wRC+: 108
HR: 30
AVG: .232
WAR: 3.0

Comparable

How these are computed

wOBA uses linear weights measured from this season's own play-by-play rather than published constants, and wRC+ is park-adjusted against that same league. dbWAR is our own open implementation — not fWAR or bWAR — and the full derivation, including its simplifications, is on the methodology page.