All astute baseball fans have noticed there is a big difference in Joey Votto’s game this year. No, I’m not talking about his sub-.230 AVG or his sub-.360 OBP. I’m talking, of course, about his strikeout rate (K%).
Votto has never had a K% at 20% or higher, with his career high being 19.5% in 2009. As of the writing of this sentence, Votto is sporting a 26.3% K%. This puts him in the same company as Khris Davis and Mark Reynolds. Unless you’re talking about power on contact, a hitter of Votto’s caliber doesn’t want to be mentioned in the same sentence as those gentlemen.