Astros Series Preview: Cody Reed has arrived!

Jose Altuve is excited to face Cody Reed.
Photo Credit: Arturo Pardavila III

Having parted ways with the Braves, the Reds head to Houston to take on the Astros this weekend.  The big news for this series is the expected debut of Cody Reed, who is arguably, given the struggles of Robert Stephenson and Jesse Winker, the Reds' top prospect at this moment.  It's really the most exciting debut of the year thus far, because it could (and should) hopefully be the start of Reed's long tenure with the Reds.  There has been no indication that the Reds intend for his window here to be a short one, like the spot starts they gave to Stephenson earlier in the year.

The Astros have fallen on hard times this year after being the great story of 2015.  Their offense has struggled to put runs on the board, and most significantly, their starting pitching has really struggled this year.  They have had good success with the glove and in the bullpen, but this seems a poor facsimile of the powerhouse team we saw in the playoffs last year.  For all of their struggles, however, the Astros still project pretty well over the rest of the season (0.540 winning percentage), which still gives them a pretty good chance of making the playoffs based on FanGraphs' numbers. 

Position Players

Like a lot of fans, I first heard about Jose Altuve when listening to Kevin Goldstein and Jason Parks' old weekly podcast from Baseball Prospectus.  Altuve was Goldstein's favorite.  He was just starting to raise eyebrows with his hitting, but, given Altuve's size, most were still skeptical of his performance.  Kevin described him as "adorable."  It has just been so fun to see him become a legitimate star player for the Astros over these past two years.  He makes great contact, has good knowledge of the strike zone (assuming pitchers can find his!), and somehow possesses legitimate doubles power despite his size.

The guy who was supposed to be the other star for the 'Stros was Altuve's double play partner, Carlos Correa.  The hype on Correa was ridiculous this spring, and it's hard to say the guy hadn't earned it.  His performance has cooled a bit from last year's heights, although he has still turned in an excellent offensive season.  I'm raising my eyebrow a bit at his UZR number; Correa is known as a good-not-great defensive shortstop, and it'll be interesting to see where that number ultimately stabilizes next year.  If he's a league-average shortstop in the field, Correa is a star.  If he keeps racking up deficits, maybe he'll have to move over to third base a lot sooner than expected.

The other guy I find pretty interesting is George Springer.  Springer is a nice all-around player.  He has good power, good speed, a good glove, and enough contact ability to keep the strikeouts from becoming a serious problem.  I'm surprised to see how often he hits the ball on the ground; he leads his team at 52%.  He has the speed to beat out ground balls, but you have to think he might see an increase in his productivity of he can get a few more balls in the air given his power capacity.

So where do they struggle?  Their bench has been a non-factor.  Evan Gattis is basically pure power, without other skills to provide much value.  They still haven't solved first base.  But the biggest disappointment here has to be Carlos Gomez.  Gomez has been a masterful player for years with the Brewers, but he has been abysmal with the Astros this year.  Some of that, and perhaps much of that, can be attributed to injury, and he has missed time already.  But if you have a healthy Carlos Gomez, you might add 3 wins to this team already by this point in the season.  I really like Gomez, and I hope he snaps out of it.

It's good to see Votto back above-average again and in the midst of one of his patented on-base streaks (16 games and counting!).  He looks so much better at the plate these days; gone are the horrifically awkward swings of April, and now he's an on-base machine.  Hopefully we'll start to see the power we saw in the second-half last season again, but I'm already very comfortable when he comes up to the plate again.

Not much else is new, here.  I love Zack Cozart and Jay Bruce.  Love them.  But the Reds need to be working the phones on those guys.  They should each fetch a nice return, if the Reds play their cards right.  I'm looking forward to seeing them play in the playoffs this fall.

Finally, if you told me that Duvall would hit 19 home runs this year, I'd be fairly content with that total on the season.  The fact that he's already done it is astonishing.  I sure wish he would take a walk, but perhaps that will come as pitchers start to avoid the strike zone when he's at the plate.

Probable Starters

Cody Reed is here!  Reed was the lesser-known quantity in the Johnny Cueto trade last fall, but even then the prospect guys were identifying him as arguably the top guy in that deal.  This year, he hasn't disappointing, posting a 3.20 ERA with supporting peripherals across 11 starts in AAA.  With the super-2 deadline likely behind us, it's his time to show us what he can do.  Reed has been nothing but impressive for the past two seasons, with scouts just as impressed as the stat guys.  I can't wait to see what he does.

I haven't analyzed the Astros starters in detail; you can find lots of discussion of that elsewhere.  But I will just note that Lance McCullers and Dallas Keuchel both have pretty big ERA-xFIP differentials.  Keuchel isn't posting the crazy peripherals that he did last year, but he's still allowing a steady diet of ground balls, striking guys out at a good clip, and at least not bleeding walks.  McCullers is pretty much the same guy, just with more strikeouts and more walks.  There's a lot of reason for hope among those two guys.

Bullpens

When Ken Giles was acquired this offseason, the expectation of many was that he would slide into the closer's role.  Instead, he "lost" that race to incumbent Luke Gregerson (currently on Family Emergency list), and at this point is probably not even among the top three on the depth chart.  Giles has shown a precipitous drop in his ground ball rate (and a massive spike in his home run rate), but everything else about him looks virtually identical.  Furthermore, while his April was brutal, his May we much better, and he's been unhittable thus far in June.  I'd expect him to climb back up the depth chart...although man, Will Harris has been nails so far this year.  Even without Gregerson, this is a really scary bullpen. 

Series Preview: Cleveland Indians Cross-Ohio Series - Lindor, Santana, and Salazar

Francisco Lindor.  Photo by Keith Allison

Having bid adieu to the Phillies for 2016, the Reds begin a strange cross-Ohio four-game series on Monday.  They will play the first two games in Cleveland, and then drive down I-71 to conclude the series with a pair of games in Cincinnati.  It's an interesting format that makes the series seem like its own little event.  I'm a fan.

The Indians have underperformed for the last several years.  Their last playoff appearance was 2013, despite perennially receiving rave reviews in the preseasons.  This year is no different, with many projection systems picking the Indians to win, or at least be within spitting distance of the AL Central crown.  In large part, these ratings are driven by their outstanding pitching staff, which is anchored by Corey Kluber, who is backed by Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar, along with a solid cast of supporting actors.  While Carrasco is currently on the shelf with a hamstring injury, their rotation, as a whole, has performed as expected so far.  The thing you'll also hear about them is how much better their fielding got in the second half last year.  Their UZR, at least, confirms this: they've been outstanding across the diamond.  In contrast, their offense has struggled a bit without Michael Brantley, and their bullpen hasn't been catching the world afire.  Nevertheless, despite the .500 record, they are still given a 62% chance at making the playoffs this year.  They're currently 5 games behind the White Sox, which, to me, look like an inferior team.

Position Players

This squad isn't quite up to full strength.  The superb Michael Brantley returned sooner than expected from injury, but compiled only 39 AB's before going back on the DL with shoulder inflammation.  They are also minus Lonnie Chisenhall, at least for the moment, who is on bereavement leave.  For the time being, however, they are running out former Red Marlon Byrd and Rajai Davis, a guy that I'm honestly surprised has not yet been a Redleg given the front office's attraction to speedy outfielders.  Jose Ramirez was previously a shortstop, but has been hitting remarkably well while roaming about the outfield.  His power is entirely doubles-based, but he makes excellent contact and, for now at least, is getting plenty of hits to fall in.

This will be my first time watching Francisco Lindor.  While he might not have the power of Carlos Correa, Lindor is already in the conversation for best shortstop in the American League.  That's driven by a good, contact-based approached, and excellent fielding.  I'm a big fan of several of the Indians' other players.  Carlos Santana isn't catching much these days, but he is one of those rare players who walks as often as he strikes out--and yet still has good power that makes him a fit in the heart of the order.  The Indians often hit him leadoff, which I love.  Yan Gomes is also a favorite; he's had a miserable season at the plate so far, but in the past has shown that he can hit, and usually is rated as excellent via the framing metrics.  Mike Napoli is looking like a good pick-up.  He offers a nice dose of right-handed power in the middle of the order, and didn't cost a ton to sign.

I'm kind of surprised to see Tucker Barnhart's fielding rated as negative at this point in the season.  Baseball Prospectus's framing metric, which is the best I know of, rates him as 6th-worst in the major leagues right now at -3 runs.  He's with some good catchers on that list, though; Salvador Perez is just one spot ahead of him.  Things can change.  Nevertheless, I have noticed that Tucker's arm hasn't seemed to have a lot of zip on it at times, and he's not always as mobile as I'd hoped when blocking pitches.  Of course, his pitchers might have something to do with the number of wild pitches he's allowed.  I'm probably just expecting too much of him, but I'd really like him to be a brilliant defensive catcher.  He's in line for a lot of playing time, but hopefully he won't get over-used.  I'd like to see him get a rest in day games, for example, and that hasn't always been happening.

Joey Votto didn't have a great series against Philadelphia, but he has himself almost back up to a league-average wRC+.  His BABIP is still low, and he still looks awkward at times, but he's hitting with a lot more power now than he did earlier in the season.  I don't know what to say about Jay Bruce's ever-declining UZR, but I reject it.  He might have missed a ball or two early on, and whiffed on that double today, but he still looks at least very solid to me in right field.

Probable Starters

The Reds will face an interesting set of pitchers in this series.  Danny Salazar has been pretty awesome.  He walks a lot of batters, but he's been inducing a ton of ground balls while striking just about everyone else out.  Cody Anderson and Josh Tomlin have yielded the exact same peripherals thus far, but with wildly different outcomes.  Anderson throws 94 mph, while Tomlin is a classic soft-tosser...who relies on his fastball more than any other starter in this series.  And finally, to cap off the series, we have the excellent Corey Kluber, who does everything right.

Bullpens

Cody Allen was superb last year.  This year, he's declined in velocity, and with that decline has come a drop in strikeouts and a huge increase in his walk rate.  He's been pretty shaky thus far, but is still being placed in high-leverage situations.  Bryan Shaw has also struggled.  Fortunately, the Indians have gotten decent outcomes out of the rest of their pen.  Probably the most dominant has been Joba Chamberlain, who has been superb in his first year with Cleveland.

The 2015 Reds: Season in Review

The 2015 Reds were the worst Cincinnati baseball team in 33 years.  They went just 64-98 (.395), which was the worst mark since the 1982 Reds, who went 61-101 (.374).  Before that, you have to go back to the ill-fated teams of the early 1930's to find teams who were as miserable as this past year's Reds squad.

We could probably end this recap with that statement.  Before I move on from last year, however, I wanted to do one last look at the team to see if there was anything positive to glean from last year's statistics.  I'm not very optimistic, but here goes.

Generally, the Reds were bad at almost everything last year (table, right).  On the whole, despite some outstanding individual performances, they didn't hit well and they did not pitch well.  Even their fielding, which has been a strength of the Jocketty-Reds, was just league-average last season.  The only positive was their baserunning, which was largely the result of allowing Billy Hamilton 454 PA's in center field.

The Reds did manage to hover around .500 in the first half, to the point that the fanbase was still fairly content as they hosted the All Star Game.  That event turned out to be about the last happy thing that happened to the team, because they immediately struggled as play resumed.  A few weeks later, the front office made their inevitable deals to trade away Johnny Cueto and Mike Leake (but not Aroldis Chapman, Todd Frazier, or Jay Bruce), and the team started to nosedive.  That nosedive continued through August and September, and they finished the year on a 1-14 skid.  Yikes:

The positive thing, I suppose, is that because the Reds finished with the second-worst record in baseball, they get the #2 pick in this year's amateur draft.  Small victories.

Position Players

The best thing about the Reds' season was unquestionably Joey Votto.  While he was very good in the first half, Votto went on a tear in the second half that was arguably better than any streak thus far in his career.  According to both FanGraphs WAR and Baseball-Reference WAR, 2015 was Joey Votto's best season of his career.  His counting stats might not have been on par with 2010 levels, but he walked more than he struck out, posted a ridiculous .459 OBP, and had excellent power to boot.  Given how pessimistic I was about his future in the preseason, it's hard not to be excited to see him strong and healthy once again.  Unfortunately, I missed a lot of it because the Reds were so painful to watch as the season ended.

During the first half of the season, the story of the team was Todd Frazier, who had a mammoth start culminated in him winning the home run derby at Cincinnati's All-Star Game.  Fun stuff.  Unfortunately, he struggled horribly in the second half.  And now, he has been traded in a deal that most analysts view as a botch for the Reds.  So.

Eugenio Suarez was a pleasant surprise.  Acquired in the Alfredo Simon deal last offseason, he stepped in when Zack Cozart went down with a very unfortunate injury and immediately became a contributor on offense.  He hit for surprising power: with 13 home runs with the Reds, and another 8 with the AAA Louisville Bats (21 altogether), he easily surpassed his previous single-season best of 12 in a season.  It was fun to watch, although it's a bit tough to know what to make of him next year.  His fielding numbers seemed ok at the start of his stint with the Reds, but as the season went on the numbers reflected some of the scouting questions about his ability to stick at shortstop.  Furthermore, his batting line looks a bit volatile: he had only a 4% walk rate, and his BABIP is a bit high for someone who seems a bit prone to pull the ball into the air.  Steamer projects him as a 1.9 WAR player next year: a tad below league-average bat, and slightly above-average (with credit for his position) glove.  That seems about right.  With Frazier gone, most seem to now project Suarez as the Reds' new third baseman.  I'm not sure who else could even be in the running.

Billy Hamilton was on his way to a really interesting season that tested our notion of how much someone's baserunning and fielding could make up for their complete ineptitude with the bat.  Unfortunately, an injury ended his season early, so we didn't get to see a full 600 PA's of that kind of performance.  As hard as it is to accept that a 52 wRC+ player might have value, his overall ratings pegged him as a 1.9 WAR player.  That's right about league-average, and I honestly think that's correct.  Assuming he recovers from his injury, the Reds could do worse than putting him out there every day.  Of course, I, like others, wonder if its time to drop switch hitting and just let him focus on swinging from one side of the plate.  Apparently, though, the Reds will have him stick with it.  I'm not sure that's the right decision.

Brandon Phillips recovered to a degree from last year's bad performance, showing a second consecutive season with very limited power (.100 ISO's).  Nevertheless, his strikeout rate dropped quite a bit, and his contact rate improved, indicating that he made an adjustment last year, as Joel Luckhaupt has repeatedly mentioned, to focus on spraying the ball and hitting singles now that his power is gone.  It might be enough to keep him a useful player over the remaining two years of his contract, which apparently will be with the Reds.

What else is there to say?  Jay Bruce had yet another disappointing season, and has now posted sub-replacement numbers over the past two seasons.  Marlon Byrd, Brayan Pena, and Skip Schumaker are gone, so there's no use dwelling on them.  Tucker Barnhart proved a competent backup catcher, which was nice to see.

Starting Pitching

Johnny Cueto and Mike Leake really had to be traded.  Leake, you could argue, might have been worth retaining to secure the draft pick.  His 5 year, $80-million contract with the Cardinals is verification that he would never have accepted arbitration.  But Cueto was worth far more on the open market than the Reds could get with a compensation pick.  I'll miss both of them a lot, and I'm not looking forward to seeing Leake or Cueto pitching against the Reds next year.

Anthony DeSclafani had a really nice debut season with the Reds.  His walk rate steadily improved as the season went on, he maintained good velocity, his strikeout totals were fairly steady, etc.  Honestly, I don't think the Reds could have possibly hoped for more.  If he can repeat next year, I'll be thrilled.

The other nice performance was Raisel Iglesias, who immediately proved that he can get major league hitters out despite his only average velocity.  Assuming his body can hold up to the workload of a startup, he looks like a very solid mid-rotation starter for the Reds next year.

Michael Lorenzen was the early season darling.  Early on, he luck-dragoned his way into a good ERA despite miserable peripherals, and that inevitably caught up to him.  He had the best velocity of any Reds starter, but had both control and command issues stemming from a self-confessed tendency to nibble. That might be correctable, or it might be a function of his stuff not being good enough to get out major league hitters.

The guy I'm most intrigued by is John Lamb.  The rap on Lamb is that his velocity never returned following Tommy John surgery, and as a result his stuff was substantially diminished from his days as a top prospect.  Last year, however, he was sitting comfortably around 92-93 mph during his first 7 starts or so, although he faded a bit during his last performances.  While his ERA was atrocious due to a very high home run rate (a function, at least in part, to severe flyball tendencies), his xFIP and SIERA were excellent thanks to very good strikeout and walk rates.  If he can keep his velocity up next season, he might be a surprisingly good pitcher for the Reds.

Also intriguing was Brandon Finnegan.  He only made four starts with the Reds, but managed a 20:5 K:BB ratio across 21 innings.  The walk rate was a bit high, but his groundball rate was good, as were the strikeouts.  Given his pedigree, he'll be one to watch next season.  I hope they give him a legitimate chance as a starter, though it seems like there's a sentiment that he belongs in the pen.  I hate to give up on a talented pitcher so easily.

I'd forgotten that Jason Marquis started the season in the rotation, and even had a stretch where he was striking guys out over his first few starts.  Keyvius Sampson managed to avoid walking everybody for a couple of starts until things went south.  Jon Moscot hurt himself on a freak play, but might turn into a #5...

You know, if you close your eyes real hard, and take a breath, you can imagine a decent rotation next year.  DeSclafani and Iglesias are capable.  Homer Bailey returns in May.  John Lamb and Brandon Finnegan might step up.  It could happen...

Bullpen

Aroldis Chapman continued to be ridiculous, and is now equipped with a change-up.  It's hard to get too excited about him now, though: he either is looking at a significant suspension due to domestic violence, or he is bound to be dealt.

Burke Badenhop was surprisingly bad.  He did manage to post a league-average ERA by season's end, but I was so excited about him entering the season.  Ultimately, his ground ball rate took a big hit from prior seasons, while his already-low strikeout rate fell even more.  He started terribly, recovered to a degree, but was just never the same pitcher the Reds thought they were getting.

My guy Jumbo Diaz had a nice second half after what looked like a string of bad luck sent him back to Louisville.  Diaz posted outstanding strikeout:walk numbers and great velocity all season long, but a string of home runs plagued him early on.  I don't know if that really was bad luck, lapses in concentration, or what.  But it was good to see him finish the season strong.  He could find himself in a closer role next year, assuming Chapman is out of the picture.

The guy who likely will get the first crack at the closer job, however, is J.J. Hoover.  By ERA, Hoover had a very nice bounce-back season, posting a 2.94 ERA after a miserable 4.88 ERA in 2014.  He also showed a nice spike in his ground ball rate last year, up to 40% after hovering around 30% during his first three seasons.  Unfortunately, at the same time, his strikeout rate fell precipitously, while he still walks far too many.  I don't see continued success in the cards, which is a bummer because he's reportedly a nice guy.

The other big disappointment was Tony Cingrani, who was just wild as all heck.  Cingrani will always be an enigma to me.  I'm hoping that, with a full offseason of rest, his shoulder will completely recover, and we can see him as an effective left-handed option out of the pen enxt year.

Hey, remember when Kevin Gregg was the team's setup guy in April?  lol's.

Conclusions

So, there you have it.  The Reds were bad last year, and they can only really get better next year.  Hopefully.  They won't have Todd Frazier, but they will have Devin Mesoraco.  They won't have a half-year of Johnny Cueto and Mike Leake, but they might be less likely to waste hundreds of innings on sub-replacement starters too.  They probably won't get a 7.4-WAR season from Joey Votto, but they can hope for something not too far off.  That said, I don't see the Reds being good next year.  A .500 season would be a huge recovery from what happened in 2015.  That would seem to be the ceiling on next year's squad, but it's baseball.  You never know!

Joey Votto's Injury

Get well soon, Joey Votto.
Photo Credit: Keith Allison

John Fay's article this morning on Joey Votto's injury was a little disturbing.

First, this quote from Bryan Price, which appeared in another article yesterday (I think?):

"The soreness – I can't say it's completely gone – but it's much more controlled," Price said.
"But the strength deficit is still a concern. To me, it made more sense to get Joey as close to 100 percent – that may not be possible this year – but as close to it as we can and give him a better foundation on which to play as opposed to getting him back at 50 percent because we didn't give him an extra week to 10 days to get that stability back in in his leg."

I teach a human anatomy & physiology course, but I'm certainly not qualified to provide medical analysis. So take the following with a grain of salt: this just seems weird to me. If it's just a quadriceps strain, as was originally reported, it seems like this is something that should be able to heal with rest. But this sounds more like ligament/tendon/fascia/cartilage troubles, which are notoriously slow to heal because they don't receive good blood supply.

And then there's Votto's own comments on the injury:

Asked what he could do now that he couldn't do because of the injury, Votto wouldn't go into specifics.

"That's really none of your business," he said. "I'm not going to tell you that. I'm getting stronger. I don't really want to tell you what I couldn't do before and what I can do."

...

Again, it's Votto's right to keep quiet about the injury to the media. A couple of days before he stayed back on the trip, he was asked if he was healthy.

"I feel fantastic," he said.

We know that wasn't the case.

"I like to lie a lot – I usually just tell people I feel great," Votto said.

I get that he's frustrated, and that he's a private guy. But as a fan, this kind of thing is hard to read without becoming alarmed. Something about it reminds me of Albert Pujols' struggles with plantar fasciitis. While Pujols has been quite good this year, his leg issues dogged him for at least a full season...and there was talk that it might never go away.

So, I worry that Joey Votto is dealing with chronic troubles with his knee.  He's already had part of his meniscus removed, and then had a second surgery to repair some sort of additional damage.  Yes, he was healthy all of last season.  But now, he's suffering from soreness and weakness from the same general area.  Hopefully, this is just a matter of temporary inflammation that can be brought under control.  But ...well, yeah, I'm worried.

Do fast runners protect hitters behind them?

One of the interesting insights that Joey Votto offered in Eno Sarris's interview at the end of March was the idea that having Billy Hamilton offered lineup protection.  This was a neat insight, and it makes sense: with Hamilton on first base, pitchers are more likely to throw fastballs to the batter to give their catchers a chance to throw them out, and certainly will avoid burying sliders and curveballs in the dirt.  That gives the batter a better shot at getting a good pitch to hit.

It does fly in the face of some past research, however.  In The Book, Tom Tango et al found that hitters actually hit WORSE with speedsters on first base than without.  Presumably, this effect was because they were distracted by the baserunner's antics as much as the pitcher would be.  There's on-the-field precedent for this as well: Joe Morgan famously demanded that runners hitting in front of him not steal bases while he was batting because of this distraction.  

So which is it?  Ben Lindbergh took another look at this yesterday...and found support for both arguments.  Sort of:

• Batters do see more fastballs with speedsters on first than with basecloggers on first (71% vs. 67%).  

• But despite seeing more fastballs, batters hit WORSE with speeders on first than with basecloggers (.273 TAv vs. .281 TAv)

Ben also pointed out that in The Book, they found that older batters were less distracted than younger batters.  So, hitting despite distractions might be something that can vary across hitters, and is something that hitters can learn to do.  Votto might be particularly good at it.  And really, if there's someone who would be good at this, it'd be Votto.

I might also expect, based on where their eyes are looking and their angle from the plate, that this distraction would be largest for righthanded hitters batting against left-handed pitchers.  Maybe if I get a play by play database running this summer with my Sabermetrics class, this might be something to look at!

Joey Votto is speaking my language

Despite a rough time in Kansas City a few years ago, Eno Sarris has been turning in some amazing content that blends interviews with analysis in recent months.  One of his best yet (#fanbias) was this piece on Joey Votto and his hitting approach that appeared yesterday at FanGraphs.  Votto notes that he thinks he actually was swinging too much in the strike zone last season.

Take, for example, his command of the strike zone. Some in Cincinnati were beating the drum for Joey Votto to swing at more pitches. Even his General Manager commented that he might benefit from swinging at more pitches with men on base. Too bad. Votto saw things a little differently: “I swung too much in the strike zone last year.” 

In general, Votto has swung less at pitches inside the zone as his career has progressed — 73.4% over his first four years, 66% over his last three. And in general, his contact on pitches inside the zone has increased, if marginally — 83.9% his first four years, up to 86% the last three. So when he says that he’ll swing less in the strike zone this year, he’s talking about really swinging at the pitches he wants to make contact on. In other words, he’d like to be “more in that [Joe] Mauer category, really efficient, swinging at a really low rate inside the strike zone, and outside the strike zone, very rarely swinging.” Nobody swings less than Joe Mauer.

Eno does a great job of breaking all of this down, but I thought I'd offer a graph.

So.  Yep!  Swing rate at balls in the zone has declined, until last season.  Also, this:

So, overall, Votto has trended toward fewer swings overall.  But while he kept his amazing ability to avoid swinging at balls out of the strike zone last season (tied for 5th overall in MLB), Votto increased his swing rate slightly last year because he was offering at more pitches that were in the zone.

As Eno noted, Votto has seen a slight uptick in his contact rates as a result of being more selective in the zone.  And while we know his contact rate, we don't know the quality of that contact, so perhaps that would show even better returns for Votto's increased selectivity.  But there is a counter to this: Votto had his best offensive season in 2010.  Therefore, if he's shifted his approach since that time, he might be shifting away from what is optimal in terms of his production.

My take is this: the physical tools of a hitter changes as he ages.  Votto is 30 years old, and it's possible that some of the talent that permitted him to do what he did in 2010 isn't with him anymore.  Votto has shown an uncanny ability to make adjustments to maximize the value of whatever capabilities he has at the time (think the 2012 playoffs when he did nothing but walk due to his injured knee).  I trust him to adopt the approach that will maximize his value.  This is a guy who has been worth 25 fangraphs WAR over the past 4 years, and that's after losing about 2.5 WAR for his fielding.  He's a fantastic player.

Before I close, another bit from Eno's article I just loved:

And if the idea is to move him in the order to a spot that fits him better, Votto was contrite: “I don’t care.” He admitted that he knew “a guy like Tango” would say to hit him second or fourth, but as long as Votto is near the top somewhere, he doesn’t care. A guy with a “high career ISO” like himself would probably be a little more valuable somewhere outside of the leadoff spot, but that’s for the manager to decide, and where he is in the lineup hasn’t mattered to him in the past.

Exactly. Honestly, I think this is the first player--heck, this is the first person on the field, managers included--that I've ever seen that is aware of Tom Tango by name, much less he and his co-authors' work on lineups.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go order a Joey Votto jersey...