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Justin Dunbar analyzes Joey Votto's 2021 season for fantasy baseball and his outlook for 2022.
"I want to get back to being dangerous." This is a real quote from Joey Votto prior to the 2021 season. Although never seen as a prodigious slugger, the 38-year-old Votto was still bankable for 25+ home runs in his prime. Thus, when he combined for just 27 home runs between 2018 and 2019, the question had to be asked: were we witnessing his inevitable decline?
With an average draft position of 242 heading into the 2021 season, 20th among first basemen, Votto was an afterthought in fantasy drafts. As it turns out, though, that turned out to be a major mistake.
Votto was clearly on a mission in 2021, and to say he accomplished his main goals during that objective would be an understatement. What am I talking about? Let us take a closer look.
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A Change In Approach
We'll get to Votto's results in a moment, but it all starts with the process. Votto, in his eyes, needed to make some changes, and that is exactly what he did.
Let us start with his swing decisions. With a career walk rate of 15.9%, Votto has always been seen as a patient hitter. That didn't hold up in 2021. His 71.5% zone swing rate was the highest it has been since 2010, and the same goes for his 43.9% swing rate. If you want to hit for more power, you need to be aggressive ambushing pitches in the zone, and that's exactly what Votto did in 2021.
A more aggressive approach isn't the only change Votto made, though; he also embraced other facets of being a power hitter. One of them being comfortable swinging and missing.
WHIFF RATE BY YEAR
- 2015: 23.4%
- 2016: 18.5%
- 2017: 15.4%
- 2018: 17.9%
- 2019: 19.6%
- 2020: 22.5%
- 2021: 29.4%
ZONE CONTACT RATE BY YEAR
- 2015: 79%
- 2016: 83.3%
- 2017: 87.1%
- 2018: 83.6%
- 2019: 86.2%
- 2020: 82.8%
- 2021: 77.5%
As you can see, a lot of these changes started in 2020, but Votto clearly made an attempt to trade contact quantity for contact quality, as we'll get to. To boot, his 23.8% strikeout rate was a career-high. Luckily, there is zero correlation between strikeout rate and overall offensive success, making Votto's decision a smart one. Considering that his 2021 strikeout rate isn't a liability by any means, it was easily worth striking out a bit more if it meant hitting for more power.
Speaking of which, Votto also made a swing change this past season:
More balls in the air and pulled is the precise way to hit for more power. Once again, these changes started in 2020, but it all came together in 2021. For more context, his 18.2-degree launch angle was a career-high in the Statcast era; this is the exact range you're looking for with power hitters. Votto was making all the necessary adjustments to hit for power, and, as you'll see, it clearly lead to elite results.
Votto's Elite Production
Where do we start with Votto's electric 2021 season?
In 2019, Votto posted a 98 weighted-runs-created-plus (wRC+). This means that he was 2% worse than the league-average hitter. In 2021? That was up to 140; that's a 42% change in two years!
Remember that Votto hit just 27 home runs between 2018 and 2019? He hit 36 alone in 2021! His 16.4% barrel rate was a career high, as was his 92.9 MPH average exit velocity. If you're going to make less contact, you better come through with more quality contact, which is exactly what happened.
This isn't the end of Votto's success story, though. For the first half of the year, with a 113 wRC+, which was aligned with his 2020 numbers. However, it was the second half where he took off. In that span, he posted a 195 wRC+ - an absolutely absurd number. Meanwhile, his improvement in isolated power (.206 to .383) was the greatest of any hitter last season.
It may have taken some time for Votto to get used to his new approach:
Although whiffing more was actually a good approach for Votto, whiffing over 30% of the time is too much. Luckily for Votto, he was able to find the healthy balance between making enough contact and doing so effectively, which led to a big surge in production.
Overview
With a .266/.375/.593 slash line and 36 home runs, Votto was a complete offensive performer last season. Should you have drafted him on your fantasy team in the last few rounds, you were likely very pleased by the overall results.
This year, according to NFBC.com, Votto's average draft position of 168 is not much higher- it ranks 18th amongst first basemen. In my opinion, this should not be the case. There is not any reason to believe Votto's 2021 numbers cannot be sustained in some form, considering the clear changes he made to his overall approach.
Yes, he's now 38-years-old, but he's not showing any signs of slowing down. In fact, he's showing signs of the opposite. Still in a hitters-friendly ballpark, he is likely to make a lot of fantasy managers happy next season. Votto is, in fact, dangerous again, and before it is too late, make sure to draft him onto your fantasy team!
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