Joey Votto Asked How Many Hits I Could Get
And it's not zero!
The Challenge
Joey Votto, legendary future Hall of Fame first baseman for the Cincinnati Reds, tweeted this last month:
Considering even the worst hitters in Major League Baseball are among the best baseball players in all of human history, that doesn’t bode well for my chances. But then I thought a little more about it. I’m moderately active, 37 years old, 5’11” and 190 pounds. I still have my body in working order, enough to swing a bat, throw a ball and run the bases without assistance. I mean that I can physically do these things, not that I can do them well. My batting average in an 18+ adult wood league last year was good enough to bat 8th in the lineup, but I did hit two doubles.
The Reality
Let’s say Joey Votto gets permission to sign someone for this. And to give him incentive to pick the best possible player, he’s being offered a bonus of $1,000,000 per hit and $100,000 per time on base by whoever he picks. (He can’t choose anyone with college or professional experience, which really waters down the pool). According to census.gov, 18.39% of the United States population is a male aged 18-44. Now for some crazy math:
That comes out to 60,953,523 men in this hypothetical pool Joey Votto can choose from with the best chance of success
The top 1% of that group would be 609,523.
College baseball rosters of 1,502 DI, DII, DIII and junior colleges can carry a max of 52,323 players, totaling 8.6% of the top 1%
At any given time, at the major and minor league levels, 6,000 to 7,000 players are under contract. That’s about 1% of that top 1%.
Major League 40-man rosters are 1,200 players, or 0.20% of the top 1% of males in the US aged 18-44.
Now throw in all the retired pro and college players as well as 18-year-olds in high school, and that’s close to one million. I can comfortably say that I am better than 98% of the adult male population. So there are most likely, right now, 1,219,069 players that a Major League team would choose before they get to me.
So now that I’ve vastly overestimated my true talent, I can say this. I would be awful. From the first time I set foot in a batter’s box it would be obvious I would need an Angels in the Outfield miracle to have any kind of success. If I was dropped into the lineup completely unprepared for this weekend’s Reds series against the Mets, I’d have the 9 worst plate appearances in baseball history. To give you an idea how hard baseball is, here is a plate appearance by the Reds’ Luke Maile against Braves Cy Young candidate Spencer Strider this season:
Good morning, good afternoon, and good night.
Luke Maile slashed .303/.398/.530 with 21 home runs in 2 seasons as a Kentucky Wildcat. He’s hitting .211 for his career while handling catching duties, so while he’s not Mookie Betts, he’s a very good baseball player. And in this at bat he looked like he was trying to hit a wiffle ball during a hurricane. What chance do I have?
The Make-Believe
Now let’s say it’s November 1st when I get the call. I get 5 months to get ready for spring training and then one month in Goodyear before my opening day start. And from the moment I get to spring training, I have access to Major League coaching, training staffs, facilities and nutrition. So unless I have to keep working my day job as an accountant, I should at least be prepared. But even if I took swings every day for 6 months and worked out like a maniac (without triggering a PED suspension), there’s some things that are still guaranteed:
Anything over 95 mph is going to blow past me. The one thing that could save me is that I would start my swing so late, the umpire might already have called the pitch a ball.
As a left-handed hitter, I’m going to hit .000 against southpaws. My OBP won’t be .000 because I’m sure two or three pitches will leave a bruise.
Anything that breaks more than 8 inches in any direction… nope.
As a Mantle, I’m not going to put added pressure on myself and wear #7.
With all that said, what would be the chances? I’m stuck in the lineup, batting ninth all 162 games. I’ll probably have more chances than the average ninth-hole hitter to drive in runs, since with two outs and any base open, the other team would gladly intentionally walk the bases loaded to get to me, and then bring in the lefty. One thing going in my favor is the new shift rule. Since all the infielders have to be on the dirt when the pitch is thrown, that opens up the shallow outfield for bloopers. The outfielders would be playing in, but there’s always a chance if you place it just right.
The other time I can guarantee a competitive at bat is against a position player pitching. At least then I’ll have a chance to swing at a 65-mph batting practice fastball. I think any pitch under 88 mph, in the strike zone, and from a righty is my best bet. Eventually someone’s gonna leave a cement mixer slider over the heart of the plate and I will dribble that seeing-eye ground ball into shallow left field.
The Actual Science
But that’s enough imagining. Let’s look at the actual 9th hitters in the Reds lineup this season and see if there were any pitches I could’ve hit. Here’s how the 9-hitters are doing this season through Sept. 12:
And against lefties only:
Well, at least I would only have 23 less hits than the actual spot. Here’s the pitch chart for left-handed pitchers against the last spot in the order:
Looks like I’m getting a fastball to the ribs and a curveball to the dome. I wonder how bad that changeup to the cheeks would hurt.
Okay so 148 plate appearances, I’ve got 5 HBP, 0 hits and let’s say 5 walks. So my slash line vs lefties is .000/.068/.000. Let’s look at the right-handed pitchers:
That is a lot of fastballs above the letters. Not hitting any of those. There are 1,551 pitches from righties this season. 438 of those were in the strike zone:
90 of those pitches were fastballs at 95+. I won’t be seeing those until I watch it later on video. But there were 3 pitches in the strike zone under 70mph across 3 plate appearances.
Let’s see if they were hittable:
I don’t think I’d square up that rainbow curveball from Adam Wainwright. But I’m going 2/2 off the Josh Harrison “fastballs”. Alright, batting average is now on the board. Are there any other pitches I could’ve hit? There were 31 other four-seam fastballs under 90, but the Reds only had 3 hits on those. Here’s a sample of those pitches and… I’m not sure how many I could actually put into fair territory.
Will Benson hit that double 107mph. That’s not happening with me in the box. So I think here’s the results of replacing the number 9 hitter in the Reds lineup with me this season:
I don’t think that’s gonna get me any MVP votes. Or even hold my job down for the 2024 season. But I did set some records! 475 strikeouts is more than double the current record of 223 from Mark Reynolds in 2009. That one’s not getting caught any time soon. My .011 batting average is lower than the .168 by Chris Davis in 2018, and that one will hold forever. My WAR of -10.9 would be by far the most disastrous for a team ever:
The previous record of worst WAR was -4.0 by Jim Levey of the 1933 St. Louis Browns, and even he hit 2 home runs at least.
The Conclusion
So there you have it, Mr. Votto. Somewhere between 5 and 10 hits, at least 3 times hit by a pitch, and maybe 10-15 walks. And of the over 20,500 players in Major League history, that puts me ahead of about 4,264 players without a hit. Not too shabby. So, when should I sign an agent?
