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Unfortunately, especially for the Cincinnati Reds, the baseball season is rapidly coming to a close. Just as in school, a student is issued a final grade for the season, and it is within my power as Caesar Cliffius, not to mention Featured Columnist for my beloved Reds, to grade each player at his respective position.

This is the first in a series of articles designed to give a thumbnail image of each player’s performance rating for the season.

I could have confronted this issue from a couple of different angles. For instance, I could have evaluated them against the other players in MLB at their positions. I could also have graded them against their own ability. I decided, however, to grade them on a “bell curve” within the team.

We will start this evaluation process with the starting first baseman, Joey Votto. Joey started the season as if he were angry at the baseball. He was among the leaders in batting average for a huge part of the season. In fact, his average didn’t dip below.330 until Aug. 3.

Votto served a couple of stints on the bench and on the DL resulting from emotional problems brought on by the death of his father. After getting himself together, he has carved out a very good season, currently batting .314 with 22 HR and 76 RBI.

He is just about on pace to mimic his statistics from last year, when he was robbed of the Rookie of the Year award by Chicago Cubs catcher Geovany Soto.

Even after missing 31 games, Joey leads the team in HR and in OPS+ with 144. On the downside, he has shown a propensity for the strikeout, leading the team, even with the missed games, with 104.

His defense is more than credible. He is among the league leaders currently with a fielding average of .991

His biggest highlight of the season came on May 23 at home against the Cleveland Indians, when he hit two HR and drove in four.

I feel that the low point(s) of the season have to be grouped together and chalked up to medical problems.

Strikeouts are the only thing preventing Joey from receiving the vaunted A+. Therefore he will have to settle for a very solid A.

Next up, second baseman Brandon Phillips.*

Caesar Cliffius has spoken.

*

(c) 2009 Clifton Eastham

All Rights Reserved

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