Quote:
Originally Posted by Crapshoot
Not paying attention to baseball? I'd take Votto's next 5 years over Howard - he has better range, and less of a hole against lefties. Howard had an OPS+ of 140 last year, and is a career .226.309/.443 hitter against lefties. Votto had an OPS+ of 155 and is a career 300/372/486 vs lefties - can't be neutralized by a generic left-handed reliever in the late innings.
There's enough debate here around the top 5 (ie, the not Pujols category) between Cabrera, Teixera, Votto, Cabrera, Morneau, Fielder, Morales, Gonzales etc etc - but Howard is hard to justify as a top 5 guy. Again, he's a very good player, but not elite, and he's being paid like it.
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No, no. No, no. I mean, geez, Votto's nice and he projects pretty well. But can we have a guy have an OPS+ over 130 for more than one year before we put him in the top 10 in the league??
Joey Votto Statistics and History - Baseball-Reference.com
I mean his similarity scores are as follows:
Similar Batters through 25
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Compare Stats to Similars - Bill Skowron (965)
- Todd Helton (962)
- Sean Casey (948)
- Ron Blomberg (946)
- Wally Joyner (942)
- Joe Hauser (932)
- Lance Berkman (931)
- Geoff Jenkins (928)
- Wally Berger (927)
- Kal Daniels (925)
He had one really good year at a pretty young age. Let's wait just a smidge before we put him in the top 10.
SI