Archive for Ryan Howard

Over the holidays, Al Jazeera America released an explosive, undercover report on doping in professional sports. Included in the story were secretly recorded interviews with Charlie Sly, a pharmacist who boasted of having provided illegal performance enhancing drugs to numerous professional athletes.

Among the many athletes that Sly claimed to have supplied with PEDs were several baseball players, including Ryan Howard and Ryan Zimmerman. According to Sly, both players bought and used the drug Delta-2, a banned hormone supplement.

Initially, both Howard and Zimmerman issued a joint statement staunchly denying the allegations. The two have now gone one step further, each filing suit against Al Jazeera on Tuesday evening for defamation.

However, while filing suit may provide a boost to Howard and Zimmerman in the short-term in their public relations battle against the network, the players are incurring some degree of risk by initiating legal action, and ultimately appear unlikely to prevail in their respective cases.

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Earlier in the week, we focused on the top two spots in the Phillies order. Specifically, the revelation that using Jimmy Rollins in the leadoff spot over Placido Polanco would only cost the team about 1.18 baserunners over the course of a season. The commenters pointed out, rightly, that this analysis ignored the slugging aspect of the two batters’ repertoires. Questions were also raised about the lefty-lefty tandem at the heart of the order. So, let’s dive right in and try to get this right by the numbers: A little moron, the Phillies’ batting order.

Remembering back to the LOOGY wonder that was Javier Lopez in the playoffs last year, you might over-rate the “problem” of batting lefties Chase Utley and Ryan Howard back-to-back. Lopez only pitched 4 1/3 innings, but his four strikeouts were memorable, and it seemed that he shut the duo down. But this wasn’t really a year-long problem. Yes, Howard has a nasty platoon split (.424 wOBA vs righties, .324 vs lefties), but Utley doesn’t. His work versus righties (.382 wOBA) is basically indistinguishable from his work against southpaws (.390 wOBA). Opposing managers can bring out their LOOGY for both guys at their own peril.

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Judging from this ESPNinsider piece by Buster Olney, it’s about time for a yearly piece of rosterbation when it comes to the Phillies’ lineup. With such a veteran lineup, the question really boils down to the top two spots. The three veterans that could fill those two roles are all above-average, strong players, but that doesn’t mean that the team can’t get it wrong. In fact, it’s possible they’ve been getting it wrong for a while now.

Much of this discussion revolves around the decline of Jimmy Rollins, but not all. He’s been a negative with the bat the last two years, and his sub-par wOBAs came in about half a season last year. The rule of recency might make us over-rate how far his athleticism has fallen, but if we focus on his career rates, we see that he’s always been below average when it comes to getting on base (.328 career OBP, average is about .330 most years; 7.4% career walk rate, average is about 8.5% most years).

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Perhaps the story of the Phillies in ye old National League Championship Series of 2010 is the story of missed opportunities at the plate. We know how poor of a statistic batting average is, but Ryan Howard was the only regular to top .261, so the bats weren’t hot. The entire team put up a .216/.311/.321 line, which is somewhere between “that’s disappointing” and “OMGz, trade that bum Chase Utley (.182/.333/.227) like yesterday” depending on your current state of mind. A team that hit .260/.332/.413 during the season didn’t come close to equaling that production in a six-game stretch. It happens, and it seems there’s no reason to slice and dice that sample any smaller.

Or maybe there is. Because we’ve talked about this team’s struggles against lefthanders at times. Looking at the series as a whole, though, the Phillies managed “only” 10 runs, 18 hits (7 extra base) and 9 walks in 21 innings against lefties. Perhaps we only remember the high-profile strikeouts – and the Giants’ LHPs did strike out 23 in those 21 innings. Even if we think the overall line overstates the case and want to consider the leverage index of all those Javier Lopez outings, in particular, he only averaged a 1.4 LI while compiling that 2.08 ERA and getting those 13 outs. Impressive? Yes. Higher-than-average pressure in those situations? Yes. The reason the Phillies lost the series? Hardly. The Phillies had chances and we obviously can’t blame their lack of offense all on their overall performance against lefties.

The word going in was that even if the Phillies offense was going to have a little trouble with this staff, their own pitching staff would easily neutralize the poor Giants offense. After all, the Giants were the only playoff team with a below-average wOBA and the Phillies had Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels. That trio didn’t perform poorly – they pitched 33 innings and allowed 13 runs, striking out 34 against only six walks. Perhaps more was expected of Roy Halladay after his no-hitter in the first round, but he did strain that groin and you don’t point at three pitchers that pitched 65% of your innings to a 3.27 ERA and say, there, that’s your problem right there.

The bullpen? 13 innings, three runs. The defense? Four errors to the Giants’ three – and even if you want to say errors are a poor gauge of defense, you’d have to admit they played about even on the field in that regard. Timely hitting? Sure, but what can you really do about that, and how much of that is the short sample? Want to blame Ryan Howard just ’cause? Check Dave Cameron’s defense.

It was a tight series. Javier Lopez certainly helped the Giants, and the San Francisco staff deserves some credit for keeping a good offense down. Play this series a million times, though, and the Philadelphia squad probably wins close to half of ’em. The Phillies didn’t play terribly and don’t have an obvious scapegoat going into the offseason, so all they can do is find a way to replace Jayson Werth if he leaves (preferably with a right-handed bat), rework the bullpen as good teams do every offseason, and give it another shot next year.

First off, given some of the howling on twitter, it’s time for the obligatory strike zone plot. Let’s get it out of the way, thanks to Brooks Baseball.

It’s pretty ugly, but consistent enough. It was four or five inches too wide, or a half a foot if you count both sides. But there are plenty of triangles and squares out there beyond the box, so let’s not blame it all on umpire Wally Bell.

For all the talk of how similar Madison Bumgarner and Joe Blanton were going into the game, it’s somewhat prescient that they both failed to get out of the fifth inning and that they both left having given up three earned runs. On the other hand, the journey was not necessarily so similar. Bumgarner does use his left hand, and he did strike out six and allow only one run to score while he was on the bump, while Blanton struck out three and was directly responsible for all of his runs. It wasn’t all bad for Blanton – all of his balls in play were counted as groundballs – but it since the starters played to a standstill on the scoreboard, the advantage goes to the hometown pitcher.

Phillies fans can’t even blame the randomness of coming through in high leverage moments in this one – there were eight moments with a leverage index over one last night. The Phillies batters came through in two of them, and the Giants batters came through in two of them. It may seem that the Giants were more ‘clutch,’ but that would probably just be because they came up last. To the home-fielders went the spoils.

At this point, some of the blame must rest squarely on the Phillies’ stars. In this game, Chase Utley put up a -10.8% in win probability by going one for five and not coming through in some key moments. That comes on the heels of a -12% in game three (0-for-4), +3.8% in game two (0-for-3 with two walks), and a -1.8% in game one (1-for-3 with a walk). It’s obviously just a poor four-game stretch for a great secondbaseman, but it’s also bad timing for that stretch. The same could be said for Jimmy Rollins (.267, 1 extra base hit) and Jayson Werth (.250, 1 extra base hit).

The larger pattern is one of struggles for all of the left-handers on the team. Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, the recently benched Raul Ibanez, and young Domonic Brown are a combined 7-for-39 with 7 walks and 3 extra-base hits, and most of that is Howard’s production. Maybe it’s not a surprise given the left arms of Jonathan Sanchez and Madison Bumgarner, but Javier Lopez looms as a large acquisition for the Giants in this series. He has three big holds and gave up his first run Wednesday night. His lefty sidearm release has been hard on the lefty batters, and that makes sense given the difference in release points vis-a-vis a regular right-hander.

All this said, it was a great game. The WPA graph does a good job showing the rollercoaster that was Wednesday night. Fans of baseball were satisfied, if not fans of Phillie baseball.

The weekend took your faithful Phillie correspondents to places we didn’t expect, and none of those places featured wifi and a comfy moment to kick back and review the first two games of the NLCS. Better late than never. The Phillies and Giants split the weekend, which wasn’t great for the maroon marauders because the series tilted lightly in the Giants’ favor with those results – teams that win one of two games on the road in a seven-game MLB series win the series 56.2% of the time.

Game One was just one of those games, it seems. Seven innings, eight hits, seven strikeouts, no walks and more ground balls than fly balls doesn’t seem like a line that would normally produce four earned runs, but that’s what happened to Roy Halladay Saturday night. The difference between excellent and a -8.8% WPA night for the Doc could have been summed up in two fly balls from Cody Ross that ended up in the seats. This same Cody Ross had exactly average power this year (.145 ISO) and had gone -for-16 against Halladay in his career. The same Cody Ross that was Cody Ross the Marlin until Brian Sabean briefly made him Randy Myers by supposedly claiming him just to block the Padres. Then the Giants then realized that he was better than Jose Guillen, at least in the field, so that he could become the Cody Ross, Giant, that the Bay Area now knows and loves. Either way, you read that fateful name backward as Grant did on the McCovey Chronicles, and you get “ssoR y doC,” which is about all that can be said to Halladay, who pitched well enough to win.

It did seem like the Phillie offense could have put together a five spot – Tim Lincecum wasn’t at his best either. He walked more (three), and gave up equal numbers of fly balls and ground balls, but he also struck out eight – one of which was Ryan Howard with two batters on in a tie game in the third inning (worth 6.6% in WPA alone). Though the two teams had the same amount of baserunners, and the Phillies showed a better slugging percentage as a team, it was the Giants that strung together the hits in the big moments.

The following may seem random – and most likely was – but the big lineup change between games one and two may have had a little bit to do with the different outcomes. As Rob Neyer noted before the game Sunday, Charlie Manuel reversed Placido Polanco and Chase Utley in the batting order so that the heart of the order did not include two straight lefties in Utley and Howard.

It’s a little strange to see Polanco and his lack of power batting third, and it may feel like separating two lefties isn’t that big of a deal, but just look at what the Giants did in the two games for your pudding-based proof. In Game One, Javier Lopez brought his lefty sidearm release to the mound to get Utley to ground out and Howard to strike out before leaving in a double switch that would have made Dusty Baker proud. In Game Two, Bruce Bochy brought Ramon Ramirez out to pitch to the righty Shane Victorino, but after Victorino sacrificed, he was faced with the choice of walking the lefty Utley to keep Ramirez in the game and pitch to Polanco, or burning Lopez on Utley, bringing in Sergio Romo to pitch to Polanco, and then summoning Jeremy Affeldt to get Howard. That is a lot of relievers, but with the off-day coming today, the second move-heavy approach is probably what Bochy should have done. Instead, this is what happened:

Bottom 7th: Philadelphia
– R. Oswalt singled to shallow center
– R. Ramirez relieved J. Sanchez
– S. Victorino sacrificed to third, R. Oswalt to second
– C. Utley intentionally walked
– P. Polanco singled to shallow center, R. Oswalt scored, C. Utley to second
– J. Affeldt relieved R. Ramirez
– C. Utley stole third, P. Polanco stole second
– R. Howard struck out swinging
– J. Werth intentionally walked
– P. Sandoval at third
– S. Casilla relieved J. Affeldt
– J. Rollins doubled to deep center, C. Utley, P. Polanco and J. Werth scored
– R. Ibanez lined out to third

4 runs, 3 hits, 0 errors
San Francisco 1, Philadelphia 6

Don’t underestimate the difference the new lineup made, as it obviously made Bochy’s life difficult in the seventh inning Sunday night (and then he went and made some dubious decisions of his own). Now it’s clear that he’ll have to use both of his lefties to get through the heart of the order late in game three, provided his starter once again gets the job done against the new-look lineup.

Episode Twenty-Six
In which the panel beats a near-dead horse.

Headlines
Ryan Howard: Ya Heard?!?
CPL Watch: Lee and Lewis Do Battle
Carlos Silva: What Gives?
… and other mind-bending illusions!

Featuring
Dave Cameron, Full-Time Employee
Matthew Carruth, Full-Time Lover (of Words)

Finally, you can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio on the flip-flop.

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The Philadelphia Phillies defeated the Colorado Rockies by the score of 5-4 on Monday night to take the best-of-five National League Division Series (NLDS) in four games. It was certainly an exciting end to the series with Colorado storming back to take the lead by the score of 4-2 in the eighth inning, with a three-run explosion. Unfortunately, yet another veteran closer blew up as Huston Street gave up three runs to the Phillies in the ninth inning.

Both starters were solid: Colorado’s Ubaldo Jimenez went 7.0 innings and posted a WPA of .133. Philly’s Cliff Lee went 7.1 innings and posted a WPA of .276. Offensively, Jayson Werth and Ryan Howard led the way for Philadelphia. Werth drove in two runs, plated once and posted a WPA of .397. Howard, again, made the most of one hit in the game – a double – and he drove in two runs and scored once. His WPA was .320.

Offensive MVP: Ryan Howard
Howard led the team with six RBI in the NLDS, and he also scored three runs. He heated up throughout the series, posting WPAs each game of .007, .115, .208, and .320.

Pitching MVP: Cliff Lee
Lee pitched a total of 16.1 innings out of a possible 18.0 frames, saving the bullpen and giving the team a great opportunity to win both games, which it did. He posted WPAs of .397 and .276.

Honorable Mentions:
Colorado’s most consistent hitter, despite the overall losing effort in the series, was young outfielder Carlos Gonzalez. In 17 at-bats, he hit .588/.632/.882 with 10 hits in four games. He also stole two bases, walked twice and struck out just once. Gonzalez had at least two hits in each game.

Veteran catcher Yorvit Torrealba had a big impact on the series as well, posting WPAs of .021, .213, -.132 and .321. He also played solid defense and did a nice job with his game calling. Torrealba led Rockies hitters with five RBI in the series and was second to Gonzalez in total bases with 10.

It’s now onto Los Angeles, where Philadelphia will face the Dodgers on Thursday night. The starters have not been announced yet, but lefty Cole Hamels is expected to get the ball in Game One of the National League Championship Series (NLCS). The two teams faced off in the 2008 NLCS, as well, with Philly coming out on top and eventually winning the World Series.

Ryan Howard of the Philadelpia Phillies is no stranger to the arbitration process. After a Rookie of the Year 2005 season, an MVP Award in 2006, and a 2007 campaign in which he smacked 47 HR with a wOBA of .396, Howard set an arbitration record by jumping from $900K to $10 mil. This past season, his numbers declined quite a bit, but the numbers that tend to overrate players, such as HR and RBI, tell a different story. Despite his impressive output of 48 HR and 146 RBI, Howard saw his wOBA fall to .366 and his OPS drop almost 100 points to .881.

He played in all 162 games, amassing exactly 700 PA in the process. Combine the adjustments accompanying those playing time indicators with average first base defense and solid-albeit-declining offense and Howard was worth +3.1 wins in 2008. Even in a down year relative to his standards, the burly slugger proved to be over a full win above average. At fair market value, he would have earned $14 mil… which is an interesting number given that the Phillies submitted the same figure as their bid for his 2009 contract.

Howard disagrees, as he and his representatives submitted for $18 mil. The $4 mil difference between player and team is the largest gap of any arbitration-eligible player, and the only gap above $2 mil. Does Howard have a case here? Before even delving into the calculations, it seems the answer is yes, given that his offense will likely regress closer to the 2007 levels and his playing time isn’t going to diminish.

The three projection systems offered on our site see Howard capable of a wOBA between .380 and .410. Let’s settle on .395, essentially a midpoint. At that mark, Howard would produce +37 runs above average with the bat. Add in +22 runs for his 680 or so PA and -12.5 runs for a full season at 1B, and prior to defense, Howard is worth +46.5 runs. His defense has been right around the average mark according to both UZR and Dewan, though he certainly does not look average. However, even with a pessimistic -5 run defensive projection, Howard still projects to be worth +4.2 wins.

At $4.5 mil/win, Howard’s +4.2 wins commands a fair market value of $18.9 mil. He requested $18 mil. The Phillies submitted a figure that seemingly suggests Howard’s offense will not regress, and all other evaluative aspects held constant, perhaps even worsen. The likelihood of that occurring is very low unless he has some injury the public does not know about.

He broke the bank last year around this time, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him repeat the feat. He more than earned the $10 mil last season despite largely being overrated. We tend to forget that overrated does not necessarily mean “bad.” Howard had a down year compared to what he had shown himself capable of, but he was by no means a scrub. If his projections come to fruition and he produces +4.2 wins, even his submitted figure would not properly value his contributions.

Of course, we have been using a 40/60/80 modifier here for players eligible for arbitration, meaning Howard would make 80% of his FMV right now. 80% of $18.9 mil = $15.1 mil. Howard is only entering his second arbitration year, so he really should be closer to 60%, but I do not think he is currently on the 40/60/80 track, completely. Suffice it to say, 80% simply is more realistic.

It’s closer to the Phillies side of things but in between both figures. The ideal situation would see the two sides settle, but I cannot see that happening.

I’m not sure exactly how the arbitration judges think, but if you couple the idea that his offense will regress and improve to the tune of ~+4 wins, and that he finished second in MVP voting (hey, maybe that matters to them), this could easily tilt in Howard’s favor again.

The title to this post is one of the most common sayings amongst baseball fans. It also happens to be the saying that drives me the zaniest, makes me want to bang pots and pans on my head, or tie someone to a chair and force them to watch, on a continuous loop, the film You Got Served. Albert Pujols recently won his second MVP award. The BBWAA got it right, thankfully, but Pujols winning the vote by a final tally of 369-308 was much too close for my liking, regardless of who finished second. Add in that the second place finisher was Ryan Howard of the Phillies and this is when I begin to lose my cool. Keep in mind while reading this article that I am a devout Phillies fan, and that I am not criticizing the writer’s association for a 369-308 final tally, but rather criticizing everyone across the country who felt that Howard truly should have sniffed the MVP award.

To start things off, why did anyone even think Howard deserved the award, or felt he had a good shot of winning, in the first place? He hit 48 home runs and knocked in 146 runners, very gaudy power numbers. This is the first reason. The only other reason conjured up involves… ugh… Howard “hitting when it counted.” Yes, in September, when the Phillies were fighting to get into the playoffs, Howard did more than just endorse Subway: he hit .352/.422/.852, a 1.274 OPS, with 11 home runs. His September performance carried the team into the post-season, where they eventually won the World Series. Because his performance earned the team a playoff berth, he must be highly considered for the award, right? Right?

Is it just me, or does the entire season count? I mean, I know I’m not a rocket scientist (another cliche favorite of mine), but I do know that statistics and performances technically count for the entire duration of the 162-game season. Going off of this, Howard only hit when it counted some of the time, because, for half of the season, he was average or below average. In April, he hit .172/.297/.343, with five home runs. In June, .234/.287/.439, and in August, .213/.328/.463. Even if you ignore the batting average aspect of the slash line and focus on the OBP/SLG, those are not solid months. Those are Ronnie Belliard months. Did anyone stop to think that if Howard had performed even on par with slightly above average offensive players in those three months, that he wouldn’t have needed to carry the Phillies in September?

I mean, sure, we cannot go back and change the course of history like in that Ashton Kutcher movie, but I would venture a guess that if Howard posted even an OPS of .830 in those months, that the Phillies would have been in a great situation entering September with regards to the playoffs. Instead, he was essentially reverse-anchored, and his entire season was evaluated with the final month in mind. The opposite happened to Chase Utley, who went crazy in April/May, and tailed off the rest of the season, still posting great numbers, but built on a performance far from fresh in the minds of fans and voters. Nobody remembers movies or performances from January and February when it comes time to the Academy Awards, and that is pretty much exactly what happened with Utley. Back to Howard, though, who by no means deserved to win the award, or even finish second.

Howard’s WPA/LI this season was 2.93, pretty good, but by no means great. On his own team, here are some other players and their context-neutral win contributions: Chase Utley (3.63), Cole Hamels (2.83), Pat Burrell (2.77), Jayson Werth (2.70). Factor in Brad Lidge’s 5.37 WPA as a closer, and that gives us five other players on the Phillies that were either better than Howard in terms of overall production, or very close to him. Suffice it to say, strong cases were not made for Hamels, Burrell, Utley, or Werth.

His 2.93 WPA/LI ranked 16th in the senior circuit, but where did he rank in some other categories? His home run and RBI totals topped all others in the whole sport, but outside of that, he honestly did not have an impressive season. His OBP ranked 49th, and despite the 48 HR, his SLG finished sixth best. Put together, this slotted him 14th in the OPS department. Howard’s WPA ranked 23rd, and in the fielding department, he finished 12th at the position. For those curious, Pujols ranked either first, second, or third in BA, OBP, SLG, OPS, WPA, and WPA/LI, as well as fourth in home runs and ninth in RBIs.

The most interesting statistic I saw involving Howard’s candidacy was this: in 700 PAs, Howard posted a 2.93 WPA/LI, making him about three wins above an average player offensively. In just 229 PAs with the Dodgers, Manny Ramirez posted a 3.10 WPA/LI. And keep in mind that WPA/LI is a counting stat, just like home runs.

Ryan Howard is an important part of the Phillies, and his September performance did carry them into the playoffs; however, strong April numbers would have counted just as much, and likely would have prevented September from meaning as much as it did to the team. For someone to “hit when it counts,” that player should be consistently great all year long, since the entire season counts. I can understand his candidacy in a year when there really isn’t a clear-cut winner for the award, but Pujols was so far ahead of everyone else that it is borderline absurd for certain writers or fans to froth at the mouth over Howard’s exclusion from several ballots. As a fan of his team, I can vouch that without his production, the Phillies wouldn’t have been nearly as good, but the same can be said, if not moreso, for Chase Utley, Cole Hamels, Brad Lidge, Pat Burrell, and Jayson Werth.

No matter how you look at it, unless you are advocating giving the MVP award to someone with only one amazing month, Howard did not deserve the award, should not have finished second, and definitely should not have finished that far ahead of Utley.