Reds Legend Joey Votto Retires: A Storied 17-Season MLB Career Comes to an End

Joey Votto is retiring after 17 seasons in major league baseball.

The Cincinnati Reds star first baseman Joey Votto Retires from baseball on Instagram on Wednesday by releasing a video saying, “That’s it; I’m done; I am officially retired from baseball.”

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The news brings the curtain down on the tale of a player who has been regarded as one of the most successful hitters of an era, with six recognitions among the best players of their league, plus an MVP.

Votto started his career as a second-round draft choice for the Reds organization in the 2002 MLB June First-Year Player Draft. He was a top prospect for a couple of years and while he struggled in his first couple of years in the minors, he posted good numbers in 2006 and made his big league debut in 2007.

Already, in his rookie season, Votto was a perfect mix of selectiveness and hitting from the batter’s box. He was second in the voting for the 2008 MLB Rookie of the Year Award and won the MVP in 2010. No longer was he a hitter’s delight; rather, he provided the best on-base percentage in the NL in seven out of nine consecutive seasons.

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It was a span in which the Reds clinched divisional championships, yet it was also a span in which the team found itself at the bottom of the NL Central. Through all that time, Votto was with the team on a deal that spanned well over 10 years and his affiliation with Cincinnati was put to a halt after the 2023 season when he became a free agent. In his last seasons of playing with the team, he was often severed by injuries.

He tried to extend his career and returned to the Blue Jays organization with a minor league contract. But as he stated in his lengthy Instagram caption, he looked like he just “wasn’t good anymore.” He didn’t even make it to the big leagues with the Jays.

Joey Votto’s Hall of Fame chances

Votto had his share of critics while he was active but it’s hard to envision voters denying him entry to Cooperstown once he becomes eligible in 2029.

You might argue about the importance of drawing walks—a category in which Votto is arguably the best in MLB history—but there is arguably no better hitter in his first decade in the league. From 2007 to 2017, of qualified hitters, only Bonds was better than Votto in terms of on-base plus percentage (.428). He was sixth in batting average (.313) and eighth in slugging percentage (.541) and only three players hit better than the average.

Votto may not have hit as many home runs as some of the other first-basemen legends, but if the mission was to get him out, he was a nightmare for pitchers. It’s about a hitter so special that he didn’t ground into a first-baseman pop-up until 2019.

In an era when sluggers are more accused of catering for strength than if they ever waited for a base-on-ball, Votto feels like a figure who will extend his dominance over today’s apex of baseball.

That hitting ability, of course, is in addition to being the team’s best player since the year 2000 and one of only five Reds players in the team’s history to spend their entire career with the team (the Jays’ signing him notwithstanding). Not an inner-circler? Well, sir or madam, this concept of a Hall of Fame without voting is sheer nonsense.

The people are unlikely to allow it to turn into an issue after the first vote.

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