One of more emotional free-agent sagas in recent Major League Baseball history has come to a potentially happy ending.
Joey Votto, the potential Hall of Famer and Cincinnati Reds icon who took to social media lamenting his unemployability, is poised for a kind of homecoming. He has agreed to a minor-league contract with the Toronto Blue Jays, leaving his forever baseball home behind but landing with a club in his home province of Ontario.
Votto, who turned 40 in September, was on the market for the first time since signing a 10-year, $225 million extension with the Reds in 2012. He’d hoped for a Cincy reunion after that deal expired, but his exit was more or less ensured when the club signed infielder Jeimer Candelario to a three-year, $45 million deal.
And so Votto waited. And waited. His beard grew longer. His social media lamentations became sadder.
Finally, the Blue Jays threw him a lifeline.
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‘I am excited about the opportunity to work my way back to the Major Leagues,’ Votto wrote on social media Friday. ‘It’s even sweeter to attempt this while wearing the uniform of my hometown team, the Toronto Blue Jays.’
Votto will earn $2 million if he makes the big-league roster.
Votto struggled in a partial campaign last season, with his recovery from shoulder surgery limiting him to 65 games. His fortunes languished while the Reds’ rose, as a young and potent player-position core meshed and kept the ballclub solidly in playoff contention deep into September.
Yet while Votto’s numbers last year were modest – a .202 average, 14 homers in 242 plate appearances – he will be another year removed from surgery and remains one of the most disciplined hitters of his generation. Votto led the National League in on-base percentage seven times, and his career .294/.409/.511 slash line and 356 homers put him at least on the fringe of a Cooperstown conversation.
In Toronto, he’ll aim to fill the role manned by Brandon Belt one year ago – a left-handed hitting DH against righty pitchers. The club had signed Daniel Vogelbach to a minor-league deal in hopes he’d fill that role, but apparently Votto’s upside caused them to reach out nearly a month into spring training.