Reds' Joey Votto fires back about lack of leadership criticisms
Reds first baseman Joey Votto fired back at some recent comments made about the team's lack of leadership in 2014, according to MLB.com.
Votto gathered a group of local beat writers, and said the criticisms lobbed by former Reds pitcher Mat Latos were off-base. Votto didn't directly address Latos, but the pitcher brought the issue to the public recently. "The thing that upsets me the most is the people that are talking about leadership and talking about our clubhouse are not in our clubhouse," Votto said.
Votto went on to say that he believes the only reason there were negative stories about the team's leadership is due to their poor 2014 season.
We win this year, all of a sudden there’s going to be a leader on the team or a group of leaders, and so and so did this or so and so did that, we win and all of a sudden everything changes. We have one unhealthy year last year — not a good year, let’s not forget about that, we did not have a good year last year — we need this and we need that.
The 31-year-old Votto struggled with injuries last year, hitting .255/.390/.409 over 220 at-bats.
