As we have seen though, a player's perceived talent during their career is sometimes a deciding factor. The reputation of their unique talent level, in other words.
Votto has that going for him. He has a solid reputation as being the most disciplined hitter, having the best batting eye in all of baseball, for about a decade.
His personal reputation could help or harm him. People seem to like his personality but he has also been a bit of a dick historically. He's popular as hell on social media but who knows what the older writers think of him. We do know that lots of older writers probably think he is terribly overrated - not enough produkshun, not enough team success.