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The Blue Jays and first baseman Joey Votto have agreed to a minor league take care of an invitation to main league camp, per Buster Olney of ESPN. The MVP Sports activities Group consumer himself spoke of the pact on X, sharing his pleasure.
It’s a pairing that followers in Toronto have been dreaming about for a very long time, as Votto grew up within the metropolis of Etobicoke, which was amalgamated into the town of Toronto in 1998. For many of the previous 20 years, Votto has been mashing for the Reds whereas Blue Jays followers regarded south of the border with envy, hoping that the native legend would sometime return residence.
However again in 2012, Votto signed a 10-year extension with the Reds that ran via 2023. That pact solely simply expired a couple of months in the past with Cincy turning down a 2024 membership choice and the Reds didn’t actually have a lot skill to maintain him round. They’ve lately graduated a giant pile of place participant prospects and got here into the winter with Christian Encarnacion-Strand, Jonathan India, Tyler Stephenson and Spencer Steer as first base choices, then they added to that group by signing Jeimer Candelario.
That pushed Votto to pursue alternatives exterior Cincinnati for the primary time in his profession. The Blue Jays have been linked to Votto pretty early on, each on account of his hometown ties and the roster match. The Jays got here into the winter with only a few left-handed bats on the roster and in addition an open designated hitter spot due to the free agent departure of Brandon Belt. Votto additionally drew some reported curiosity from the Angels however now the long-awaited Votto-Blue Jays pairing has lastly come to fruition.
Nevertheless, the Votto that’s now heading to Jays’ camp isn’t fairly the identical one which gained an MVP award and earned six All-Star nods within the earlier decade. He’s been battling a big shoulder damage of late, present process surgical procedure in 2022. Over the previous two years, he’s performed simply 156 video games and hit .204/317/.394 in that point for a wRC+ of 95. His 11.5% stroll price in that point was nonetheless a couple of ticks above common however under Votto’s profession price of 15.6%. He was additionally struck out in 25.7% of his plate appearances over these two seasons, properly above his profession clip of 18.8%.
Extra to come back.
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