Joey Votto has never been the kind of hitter who leaves people guessing for long. The former Reds star spent 17 seasons in the majors, built a career as one of his generation’s best pure hitters, and now he’s using that background to unpack the craft in a way that still turns heads.
That was the case again when Votto reacted to an old Ted Williams clip laying out his thinking at the plate. Williams stressed the value of a swing with enough length to create both power and bat speed.
“In order to be quick and strong, you have to have a certain length of stroke. I can get you here or I can get you a little further out," Williams said.
"But the more stroke you have, the more stroke you have. The more chance you have to build up power and speed in this bat."
Votto didn’t push back. He said that idea fits the modern game, especially with hitters who are bigger, stronger and more willing to live with strikeouts if it means doing damage.
"But now that guys are bigger, now that guys are stronger, now that guys are more comfortable striking out, hitting a fly ball is absolutely the right move because it turns into a ball off the fence or over the wall," Votto told ESPN.com's Jeff Passan. "It turns into immediate points that the team needs."
That’s what makes the comment so striking: it comes from a player who spent most of his career doing things a different way. Votto was known for covering the whole field and for being more than willing to drive the ball the other way, so his backing of a pull-the-ball-in-the-air approach stands out.
The numbers show how his own game changed late. From 2015 to 2019, Votto sat near the bottom of the league in Pull Air%.
From 2020 to 2023, he became one of the best at it. In 2021, he posted a 22.8% Pull Air%, hit a career-high 36 home runs and finished with a .938 OPS.
That willingness to adjust is a big part of why Votto remains such an intriguing voice on hitting. He didn’t just talk about the swing from the outside - he was willing to reshape his own approach when he believed there was a better path to production.
His move into media has only made that more visible. With his work at NBC and a bigger presence around the game, fans have had more chances to hear him break down hitting in his own way, and for Reds fans especially, it’s been a treat.
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