With obvious PR move off the table, the Blue Jays need to move on from Joey Votto

As the Toronto Blue Jays finish up a three game set at home against the Cincinnati Reds on Wednesday, a great PR opportunity has gone by the wayside as longtime Red Joey Votto was not on the Jays' MLB roster to face his former team. Votto's tenure in the Blue Jays' organization has been less than ideal for the veteran hitter and a reunion at the MLB level might have had a positive impact on his season.

Votto hasn't appeared in an MLB game yet for the Blue Jays and it doesn't look like one's on the horizon anytime soon. Across three levels of minor league ball in the Jays organization, Votto has slashed a collective .165/.298/.271 with a measly two home runs and 12 runs batted in across 31 games in 2024. Toronto agreed to a minor league deal with the Canadian and 2010 MVP-winner prior to the 2024 season with hopes that he could serve at minimum as a bench bat for the major league club, but it's evident that things have not worked out the way the Jays have hoped at all this year.

Not only would an appearance in this week's series against the Reds have kindled some heartfelt feelings from Canadian fans to be able to watch one of the greatest ballplayers the country has produced, but an opportunity for Votto to face his former team would have been quite the storyline for an otherwise uneventful season. At this point in the Toronto Blue Jays' season, it's debatable whether Votto would have to "earn" a roster spot for this amazing PR opportunity to come to fruition, as a player like Steward Berroa and his 44 OPS+ could certainly cede a place for a veteran in what could potentially be his last season.

Many remain optimistic about a potential spot for Votto with the Blue Jays when rosters expand come September 1st, but it's conditional on a lot of things changing. If he finds a groove over the next few weeks he could certainly earn that opportunity, given he starts performing well at the plate soon. Ben Nicholson-Smith writes of Votto, "If he eventually finds the swing that made him one of his generation’s best hitters, the Blue Jays will be open to a promotion". So it's not completely out of the question that we could see Votto in a Blue Jays uniform outside of spring training, but he'd have to completely shift the trend he's been stuck on all season long.

Given the kind of season rejuvenation that would need to happen if Votto wants to contend for the MLB roster, it's unlikely he'll make the team this year if the Jays didn't call him up for the series vs. the Reds. This would've been a clear-cut opportunity to write storylines of a veteran making his Toronto debut at home against a team that he spent the better part of two decades with, and the Jays just didn't bite. The 2024 season has not been one of predominantly sunny highlights or storylines for the Blue Jays and their fans, and this PR opportunity could have helped the city momentarily forget about the troubles of the season thus far and enjoy a cool moment for a legend of the game. Not to mention the enjoyment that Reds fans would get in being able to watch Joey Votto once more before his career comes to a close.

Overall, the Joey Votto experiment in Toronto hasn't worked out at all the way anybody wanted it to, least of all Joey Votto. It's safe to say that he's not going to turn heads with Blue Jays higher-ups or slug his way to a roster spot to end the 2024 season given his lack of production in the minors. It's time to move on from what could have been a fun and tear-jerking year for one of the greatest and most disciplined hitters his generation created. He has already fostered what might be a Hall of Fame-worthy career in Cincinnati and maybe that's just the way things were meant to be.

Perhaps the baseball gods felt that the best way for his legacy to honour the city in which he established himself was to prevent him from wearing another uniform at the highest level, and not to face off against them as a grizzled veteran. Either way, anyone looking forward to a Votto-Reds clash will have to settle for a bit of Canadian passiveness and a tip of the cap to his amazing career.