Could Cincinnati Reds regret Joey Votto buyout? Don’t laugh (or cringe) | Press Box Wag

GOODYEAR, Arizona — One week Noelvi Marte gets hit with an 80-game suspension for a positive steroid test. The next, TJ Friedl rolls over his glove hand on a diving play and exits the spring game with a sprained wrist.

With only a week to go before they break camp, what’s next for the Cincinnati Reds?

One more suspension, injury or Matt McLain oblique scare and the Reds are going to start wishing they still had Joey Votto.

Don’t laugh. Or cringe.

It was never a crazy concept to think the Reds might exercise Votto’s contract option for 2024, not only because of his decorated place in franchise history but also because of what he might have left to offer on the field and off for a team transitioning so many very young players into a season of high expectations.

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Reds injuries Cincinnati Reds CF TJ Friedl sprains wrist in spring training game trying for diving catch

And if they wind up with enough injuries and underperformance in their position-player group, the Reds might rue the decision to cut ties with their most popular and productive player of the past generation — a franchise icon who said he was willing to discuss a number of contract scenarios to make a return possible.

Votto, who eventually signed a minor-league deal with his hometown Toronto Blue Jays with an invitation to spring training, was expected to make his Grapefruit League debut Sunday, and the expectation in Toronto is that he’ll eventually contribute to a Blue Jays team with similar postseason expectations as the Reds.

The Reds play this year in Toronto in August.

Votto, whose “heart was set on returning and finishing in one uniform,” said he believes he has enough left in the tank at 40 to help a big-league team. He did hit 13 home runs in his first 39 games back from a 10-month shoulder injury last year.

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“The difference that I feel now relative to when I returned last year and when I left the season last year is stark,” he said. “It’s a difficult game to be at less than 100 percent and to compete. And I’ll leave it at that.”

Maybe he’s right. Maybe he’s not.

The Blue Jays will get the privilege of finding out.

And the Reds might find out more than they want on the subject by the end of that three-game series in August.

Meanwhile, they need to get Friedl’s wrist right, keep McLain’s obliques in bubble wrap until the opener and pitch like hell while the kids in the lineup continue to develop.

And find somebody else to drive the bus this year.

One Man's Busted Up Trash . . .

Remember that endorsement deal Reds pitcher Hunter Greene was working on with Safelite, the auto-glass repair company, after teammate Elly De La Cruz destroyed Greene’s car window with a foul blast hit off Greene on a practice field?

Greene got his deal.

Well, sort of.

Greene hauled the busted-up driver’s-door window — held intact, if caved in, by the tinting — into the clubhouse a few days ago, still in its frame, and had De La Cruz autograph it.

Next step is to have it framed in a shadow-box to display in his home, Greene said.

So what about that endorsement deal? For now, Safelite paid the $8,500 tab for the window and preserving the old one — the coolest feature of which is the fact shards of red baseball seams remain stuck in the cracks of the caved glass.

Any possible commercials or other ads remain to be discussed.

“All I really care about is that they took care of this,” Greene said of his soon-to-be proudly displayed treasure.

“I really don’t know what’s going to come of that,” he said of any advertising campaign.

At least the window’s a start.

“It’s a great start,” Greene said.

The Big Number: 340

That’s the number of days between big-league starts for Reds left-hander Nick Lodolo if he makes his season debut April 10 against the Milwaukee Brewers as the Reds expect, following a start to the season on the injured list.

Lodolo, who missed all but seven starts last season because of lingering issues and setbacks with an injured left tibia, could make an outsized impact on the Reds’ playoff plans if he’s healthy this season, and if all the scouts and other baseball insiders are right about him being perhaps the Reds’ best pitcher.

Adversity Central

In addition to Friedl’s wrist, Marte’s suspension and Lodolo’s two-week start on the IL, the Reds also will open the season without left-hander Alex Young (back) and Ian Gibaut (forearm). And they’re monitoring pitchers Nick Martinez (rib) and Sam Moll (shoulder) for their readiness as they head into the final stretch of the spring.

But you should see the other guys.

Other NL Central title hopefuls aren’t faring any better than the Reds — and in some cases much worse.

The Chicago Cubs will open the season without $68 million starter Jameson Taillon (back), turning the last two spots in their rotation into a crapshoot of unproven young players and Drew Smyly.

The jewel of the St. Louis Cardinals’ offseason, $75 million old Reds pal Sonny Gray, is still in the spring buildup process after a hamstring issue early in camp. He’s already been ruled out of the season opener, and it’s touch-and-go whether he’ll open on the IL.

The Cardinals’ top bullpen addition, Kenyon Middleton, has been shut down with a forearm strain and all but assured of opening on the IL. And starting center fielder Tommy Edman looks like he’ll start on the IL because of a wrist injury.

And then there’s the defending division champs up in Milwaukee, who just found out their All-Star closer, Devin Williams, was diagnosed with two stress fractures in his back and is out for at least three months.

He Said It

“It took a lot out of me mentally.”

*Reds right-hander Frankie Montas on the 80-game PED suspension he served in 2019.

Montas, the free agent addition who starts Opening Day for the Reds (his third career opening assignment), spoke at length with the Enquirer about that experience in the context of Reds rookie Marte’s suspension handed down this spring.

Summer of George

The Reds miss baseball’s greatest game-day promotional giveaway in decades by one day in July.

The New York Yankees announced they’re giving 18,000 fans a George Costanza “assistant to the traveling secretary” bobblehead on July 5, commemorating the 35th anniversary of the original broadcast date of the first episode of Seinfeld. 

The bobblehead poses the Costanza character with a bat in a hitting stance, recalling the November 1996 episode in which Jason Alexander’s character takes Bernie Williams and Derek Jeter to the field to work on their game by demonstrating the physics of hitting the ball over the fence.

“Are you the guy that put us in that Ramada in Milwaukee?” Williams says to him at one point.

Costanza: “Do you wanna talk about hotels or do you wanna win some ballgames?”

Jeter: “Hey, we won the World Series.”

Costanza (scoffing): “In six games.”

The Reds play at Yankee Stadium July 2-4.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Did You Know?

Until left-hander Justin Wilson signed a one-year deal Friday to return to the Reds, he and Reds infielder Jeimer Candelario never had been teammates, or even met.

But they were traded for each other in 2017, when Candelario was a rookie for the contending Cubs, who shipped him, along with infield prospect Isaac Paredes, to Detroit at the trade deadline for Wilson and veteran catcher Alex Avila.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: How Cincinnati Reds might wind up regretting cutting Joey Votto loose