The End of Ryan Howard and the Evolution of Baseball Analysis

By the end of 2009, Ryan Howard had won a Rookie of the Year, an MVP and a World Series. He had smashed 45+ home runs and knocked home 136+ runners each of the past four seasons. Many was the number of fans who believed Howard, with the gaudy RBI totals, was Batman to Albert Pujols' Robin.

We laugh at that now, but it wasn't generally recognized as lunacy back then. Most fans were still swimming in the shallow end of the analysis pool, and because they didn't understand the new analysis that was transforming how we measured performance, they discounted it. Most baseball observers -- including baseball writers -- were still drinking the BA-HR-RBI Kool Aid, and treating fielding ability as nothing more than a tie-breaker.

A two-headed monster made us realize our folly. First, Howard's limited skills turned tail and abandoned him. After age 31, he never managed 30 home runs, 100 RBI or even a middling .320 OBP. Over the past five seasons, Howard has cost the Phillies 4.5 wins against replacement and led their slide into irrelevance.

After this season, the Phillies will pay Ryan Howard $10 million to go away. Thirty-seven-year-olds who can't hit for average or power, run, or play the field don't have many baseball suitors. If they did, I'd be getting Qualifying Offers.

We're On Board With TAv
And now, many baseball fans -- and even some writers -- speak the language of TAv, BABIP, OPS, WAR and their ilk. They understand that a walk is often as good as a hit, that fat helpings of luck can distort ordinary stats, and all the other new ideas that have infected the game.

Looking back, Baseball Reference reports that Howard was worth just 14 WAR over his four best seasons, partly because his glovework was so stony, and partly because he played home games in a launching pad. During that time, Pujols earned 28 WAR -- twice as much -- not only because he was a Gold Glove first baseman, but because he hit for a higher OBP than Howard and -- get this -- led the league in slugging three of the four seasons. A few extra home runs and RBIs on Howard's part couldn't make up for, well, everything else.

In that 2006 season when Howard took home Pujols' MVP award, Albert had a higher batting average, on base percentage and slugging average. He ran the bases better, struck out a third as often and caught 1.2 more balls hit per nine innings than Howard. (In case you're wondering, that's a seismic difference, like winning a 100 yard dash by 1.2 seconds.) Pujols was superior at everything -- except coming to bat with RBI opportunities.

As Ryan Howard bows out, we'll remember his big smile and the big bat he once wielded. And we'll remember some of the ridiculous things we believed about baseball but now better understand.

Time Waits for No One, And It Left Without Ryan Howard

Those were the days, my friend
We thought they'd never end.
We'd sing and dance, forever and a day.

Ah yes, the heady days when Philly's Ryan Howard and St. Loo's Albert Pujols were tearing up NL pitching. Howard snagged the Rookie of the Year and the MVP in consecutive seasons, slugging 58, 47, 48 and 45 homers, driving home 136+ four straight seasons, earning top-5 MVP finishes each year. 

Prince Albert, meanwhile, less prolific with the ribbies, got aboard at clips of .403, .394, .439, .415, .430, .431, .429, .462,  and .443, while slamming between 32 and 47 home runs. 

Back then, before the walls built against new analysis began crumbling down, there was debate about who was the better first baseman. Though Pujols hit for higher average, ran the bases far better, played vastly better defense and even matched Howard's strength -- power, there were still those who preferred the RBI machine. It's funny in retrospect.

Even in Howard's 2006 MVP season, Pujols was so laughably superior it's fun to look back. Howard wowed the voters by pacing the circuit with 58 jacks and 149 knocked in while batting .313. Not too shabby. But not Pujols-worthy. Albert "only" cranked 49 and "merely" drove home 137 while posting a higher batting average, higher on base average and higher slugging percentage. Howard ran in slo-mo and couldn't field a question. Pujols out-performed him six ways to Sunday, and earned 2.4 more wins against replacement. Just the difference between them was a year's work for a quality starting first baseman.

Fast forward to 2010, when the two stars turned 30. For a while there, in the 90s and early '00s, steroids masked the effect of aging and we all fell victim to its comely wiles. But time waits for no one unjuiced, and Albert's been no exception. Since entering his fourth decade, Pujols has missed an average of 36 games and flashed pedestrian first baseman batting skills -- 28-86-.287/.361/.525 for a total of 21 wins against replacement in four seasons plus this one.

That's how a superstar ages. Want to see how time ravages a good-but-flawed big man? Let Howard re-enter the batter's box. In these same four-plus seasons, Howard has missed 59 games-a-year and hit just 20-74-.254/.332/.472 for a total of two wins against replacement. Howard can't catch a cold, circle the bases in a fortnight, hit lefties or stay on the diamond. He's a $20 million albatross in Philly who will eventually help get Reuben Amaro fired. (Or he won't, which means denizens of the City of Brotherly Love will suffer a long, excruciating and likely futile rebuilding process.)

No one argues anymore that the immobile whiff-factory with better teammates should win the MVP on the back of plated runs. We understand OBP and SLG, the importance of defense and baserunning and everything else. It's fun to watch hindsight clear up the vision of those who couldn't see.

Alburquerque in Toledo . . .and Other Tales

Alburquerque Now In Toledo
After uncorking 13 walks and six wild pitches in 14 innings, Tiger reliever Al Albuquerque has been optioned to the Triple-A club in central Ohio. 

Can't wait for Houston Street to get traded to the Astros.

Brandon Phillips Leads League in RBI
After 40 games, Brandon Phillips leads the NL in RBIs with 36. Has he got some RBI magic or is he swimming in opportunities? 

Yes.

Overall, Phillips is hitting just .286 with seven home runs. But he's delivering at a .450 clip with runners in scoring position. 

Which is often. Phillips hits fourth in the Reds' lineup behind Shin-soo Choo (.452 OBP) and Joey Votto (.462 OBP).

Phillips is unlikely to renew his clutch-hitting subscription. But his opportunities club card is good for the entire season as long as Choo and Votto remain in the lineup. Barring injury, "Dat Dude" should tally his first 100-RBI season. And then he should take Choo and Votto out to dinner.

Ah, Choo
Speaking of Choo, he's lucky to be playing in this era. The 30-year-old right fielder is exactly the kind of heads-up five-tool player whose body of work was largely invisible in the pre-sabermetric days.

Since he began playing regularly for the Indians in 2008, Choo has averaged .293 with 18 homers and 73 RBI. But today we know that only scratches the surface.

Shin-soo Choo is an on-base machine who has lots of gap power. His .293/.389/.477 performance with an average of 17 steals at a 77% success rate makes him worth 34% more than the average hitter over that five-plus years. He's been worth 23 wins against replacement with the bat during that time, about four-and-a-half per year. That's perennial all-star territory.

By way of comparison, Ryan Howard's  best five consecutive years with the stick were worth 18.3 wins, despite pounding 229 homers and bringing home 680 runs. Not to pick on Howard: Joe Carter's best six years added the same number of wins as Howard's five. His 180 homers, 652 RBI and 142 SB belied a .311 OBP. Carter got Hall of Fame votes.

Ten years ago, players like Shin-soo Choo were dismissed as complimentary parts and denied credit for the RBIs accumulated by the batters behind them. Today, we recognize all of Choo's attributes and more fully appreciate him. And when the baseball writers catch up to the rest of us, they'll finally elect Tim Raines to the Hall of Fame.

Bud No Weiser 
During baseball games, Budweiser is proudly advertising their new "bowtie" shaped can. They are officially out of ideas.

All Or Nothing In Cincinnati Lineup
Cincinnati has struggled to score runs on occasion this year despite Votto, Choo, Phillips and Jay Bruce. If you're wondering why, here's the rest of the lineup and their OPS (an average starter has about a .750 OPS):

Todd Frazier, .693
Zack Cozrt, .573
Devin Mesoraco, .660
Xavier Paul, .792

And the first two guys off the bench, Chris Heisey and Ryan Hannigan, have OPS in the 400s.

With the starting core and first rate pitching to start and finish games, the Reds are a playoff threat. Another bat could really help.

Fact of the Day
Fox Sports mentioned this on their national broadcast: In 14 years as a Major Leaguer, 10 as a fulltime starter, Bronson Arroyo has never missed a start. 

A quintessentially average pitcher throughout his career, (lifetime 104 ERA+) Arroyo's durability and innings consumption have tremendous value to his team. At $11.5 million, his salary is right in the ballpark.

Rethinking Ryan Howard

What's a guy got to do to get some love? How about win a couple of home run titles, knock in 136+ each of four years, get aboard safely at a .372 clip, stick his nose into the World Series twice -- winning it once, graduate college and treat fans well?

C'mon, he even loves his mom. Yet many of the analytically-inclined, including my own personal self, denigrate Ryan Howard and predict doom and gloom for the rest of his career.

In a previous post about Phillies misphortune -- (morphing "f" sounds into "ph" while discussing the phranchise in Philly is a requirement in the blogger's handbook) -- I dismissed Howard as a dimming star because he only smacked 31 out last year. Players his size often don't age well into their 30s, so he's sometimes viewed in the past tense at age 31.

But as Phanatic reader Paz points out, Howard was injured last season and not at full strength for much of the year. Still, his .277/.353/.505 performance would be the envy of most first basemen. If he regresses even halfway to his career standard (.280/.372/.573 with 46 home runs) he remains a mighty phorce.

What are the odds of that? I'd say they're close to 100%, barring injuries. Howard has demonstrated that he's that level of talent. He's still young enough to injure baseballs at an alarming rate. His portside inclinations are an added piece of serendipity. Southpaws throw kryptonite at Ryan Howard (.234/.316/.453 versus lefties), so it's fortunate for him that most innings are served up from the starboard side.

 

What remains problematic for the Philly phirst baseman is the increasing odds of infirmity. Particularly in the cases of lumbering behemoths such as him, it's increasingly difficult to prevent the injury bug from snacking as time marches forward. Because he can't compensate with speed, defense or a DH slot, Howard has much less margin for error. If he doesn't stay healthy and regularly turn around fastballs, he's an expensive clubhouse bauble.

All of which is a long way of saying that we dismiss Ryan Howard at our own peril. He's still an elite hitter until proven otherwise. But...hedge your bets on him.
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Antiques Roadshow In Philadelphia

My wife loves watching Antiques Roadshow, a TV program whose star is stuff. Experts estimate the value of goods carted in by ordinary people, often in the six figure range. The items selected for the small screen are, of course, mostly the outliers highly prized by collectors and others bulging with disposable income.

Often the priceless items in question have little function and no aesthetic value (to me), but are “worth” stacks of large denominations to someone. Their “value” is determined by whatever someone will pay for them.

At the risk of comparing Ryan Howard to a Qing Dynasty vase, and the Philadelphia Phillies to a Saudi prince, the same dynamics seem to be in place in the case of yesterday’s five-year, $125 million contract extension. Already working under a deal that will pay him $19 this year and $20 million next year, Howard’s services at first base have been secured until he’s 37 years old.

Is this a good deal? In one sense, of course. The Phillies will retain one of their stars through his productive playing days. There isn’t a team in baseball that wouldn’t jump at the chance to write a name into their everyday lineup that could reliably deliver 40 dingers and 130 RBI.

In a market sense, no. Ryan Howard, affable though he is, is a one-dimensional star who can’t hit southpaws, gets around the bases like a Yugo, flashes iron in the field and is on course to join the Mo Vaughn Aging Club when he hits his mid-30s. Beasts of his magnitude are often one one-hundredth of a second of reaction time away from DHing for an NL club. By 2015, the Phils are likely to be paying ARod money for David Ortiz, circa 2010. Is there a GM so utterly unhinged as to offer Howard vast riches for five years starting at age 32, when he reaches free agency?

The answer is: yes, there is one. Ruben Amaro, GM of the Phils, and not because he’s suddenly contracted drunken sailor syndrome. Howard has value to Philly beyond his market prospects because he’s part of a core of players who’ve catapulted the club to the championship series two years running and still have an open window of opportunity. Howard’s a Philly icon, a known-quantity, a clubhouse-energizer and a high-character franchise enhancer. Keeping him might be the difference between the World Series and the playoffs, or between the playoffs and a quiet October of leaf-peeping in Vermont. There’s a ton of marginal value there.

Moreover, with a newish ballpark and two pennants flying, the Phils have the cash to ink deals with the rest of the core. This is not the Oakland A’s, for whom every signing represents a tradeoff.

Also worth noting is that human beings are not roulette wheels whose odds of producing desired outcomes are known and unchangeable. Howard improved his conditioning and his defense last year and demonstrated that despite the hale-fellow demeanor, he’s prepared to work for greatness. He’s much more agile afield now, indicating to the Phils that he’s a better bet than some of his comparables.

So the Phillies may have spent too far into the future for success in the next three or four years, but if you’re a fan, you’re reaching for a malt beverage. Just hope the league doesn’t start loading up lefties against your lineup.

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A Modest Proposal

If you were being set up on a blind date, you'd probably demur at the suggestion that a prospective match had "a nice personality." It's code, of course, for "looks like a cross between Julia Child and Arnold Ziffel."

Imagine how you'd back away if she were described as being ugly, but mean. Imagine further, that you had an alternative offer with a nice young lady described as average looking. In comparison, she'd seem like Helen of Troy.

Not that the juggarnaut known as the Phillies needs my help, but that's the situation facing them when Charlie Manuel writes Sybil, I mean Ryan Howard, in his lineup everyday. Howard, of course, is a truly great hitter, a .279/.376/.576 slugger with 222 dingers on his early career resume. But Howard is really two blind dates in one: Scarlett Johansen against righties and Madeline Albright against southpaws.

Continuing a trend, Howard popped off a .320/.395/.693 line in 2009 against righthanders, with a four-bagger every 10 at-bats. Against lefties, Mario Mendoza stood in for him and accumulated a .207/.298/.356 portfolio with a homer every 37 trips. Coupled with his below-average defense, Howard is a double threat -- against the Phils -- when a lefty takes the mound.

It's worse than even this, because even against right-handed pitching, opponents bring lefties out of the bullpen to face Howard, Utley and Ibanez when the game is on the line. The Phillies lose some of their pop right around the time Brad Lidge comes into the game to inject some energy into the opposition. The Yankees took advantage of this during the World Series with Andy Pettitte and CC Sabathia eating Howard up.

Suppose instead, the Phillies platooned Howard against lefties with whatever detritus they could sweep up off the waiver wire or out of Triple-A. They'd improve on offense and defense, and deflect rotation management by other teams. They'd even give the righty-killing Howard more at-bats, because as the temptation to find lefties from the bullpen declines, Manual could pinch hit Howard against righty relievers and get that 1008 OPS guy into key situations.

A replacement level first baseman hits about .237/.288/.405 with -- maybe counter-intuitively -- above-average defense. It's about a 40 point increase in OPS, plus the glove play, but what if the Phillies could find a better hitter than that? They probably have one on the roster.


Take Chris Coste, their backup catcher/first baseman. Over the last three years, Coste has pasted southpaws at a.297/.349/.465 clip. Replacing Howard with Coste against lefties would win Philadelphia two more games. And Coste is just the first name that jumped to mind. I'll bet Philly GM Ruben Amaro could do even better.


None of this should be seen as an indictment of Ryan Howard. He's a very good baseball player. But why not leverage his greatness and mitigate his weakness? It just makes sense.
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An Inconvenient Truth

What would you do with this player?

He brings a tin glove to a low-leverage defensive position. He's hitting .257/.329/.537 this year, or perhaps that was last year (.251 .339 .543). In other words, he has great power but doesn't get safely to the first three bases much.

His top speed is somewhere around Giambi, maybe Thome, and he fans more than a windmill. A left-handed swinger, he eats up righties, but southpaws own him by 54 points of OBP and 104 points of SLG. And all that is accomplished in a home park that smiles on all forms of offense while his teammates fill the bases for him.

Forgive me for suggesting this, but the Phillies ought to consider platooning Ryan Howard.

Howard is still a good hitter and his top-rung power alters the way pitchers approach the lineup. He walks a lot and is on pace to smack 40 homers for the fourth straight time...almost entirely against right-handed pitching.

Against southpaws he makes outs more than 70% of the time. That's Raid for rallies -- kills them dead. Almost certainly the Phils can find someone -- particularly playing in Citizens Bank Park -- who can spot Howard against left-handers and poke an occasional hit or coax a walk episodically. It would make the team a win or two better in a division in which that's likely to be the difference between playing for a flag or finding a fishing hole in October.

Here's the really bad news Phillies fans: the evidence suggests that Howard's on the Mo Vaughn plan, having already peaked at age 26-27. His good looks, ready smile and hale-fellow demeanor will serve him well in his second career, but they won't keep pitchers from walking Chase Utley and busting Howard high and hard if he continues to tail off. Charlie Manuel can delay that if he spells Howard against his lefty-throwing nemeses.
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So Easy A Sportswriter Could Do It

Ryan Howard hits a lot of home runs. His 46 leads the Major Leagues. Home runs are good, as even a sportswriter can tell you.

But that's all Ryan Howard does. He's not hitting for average. He strikes out more often than Carrot Top. He doesn't run well and he's a lousy fielder at the least important position. While he walks a fair amount, Howard has been on base less than 34% of the time this year. That's not even average, much less among the league's elite.

Consequently, I'm pretty sure that no jury in the country would convict Albert Pujols for taking his Louisville Slugger to the head of anyone who proposes that Ryan Howard should be the NL MVP. This is foolhardiness on par with lending money to oodles of people who can't repay their loans.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Albert is second in the Majors in hitting, has been on base nearly 46% of the time, has a slugging average more than 100 points higher than Howard's, steals an occasional base and is a Gold Glove-caliber fielder. That he's hit 12 fewer home runs and doesn't have the good fortune to play alongside Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins and Brad Lidge don't begin to offset the chasmic difference between his value to the Cardinals and Howard's value to the Phillies.

(Baseball Prospectus estimates that Pujols has been worth about nine wins to the Cards; Howard about three wins to the Phils, and that's even before evaluating defense. In fact, according to BP, Ryan Howard is not even in the top five in value relative to his position on his own team.)

You have some irrational need to bestow the MVP on Lance Berkman, or David Wright or Hanley Ramirez or Chipper Jones? Knock yourself out. It would be the wrong choice, but you could probably concoct some justification. Ryan Howard? That would just be another strikeout.