I heard a brilliant analysis of Ryan Howard's statistics by 610 WIP's Keith Jones on The Morning Show this morning. Certainly many in the blogosphere will lift his theory and say they came up with it, but I'm here to give the man his due.
He broke down just why Howard is hitting so many homers and getting so many RBI's and why the strikeouts are actually a good thing. He stated that pitchers will go after Howard continuously hoping to strike him out; the opposite of what they did with Barry Bonds, whom was intentionally walked more than any player in modern MLB history. Therefore, by seeing a regular diet of strikes and pitches, Howard will of course hit lots of homeruns and drive in tons of runs.
In other words, the strikeouts are a necessary evil. If he didn't strike out so much, he'd be getting intentionally walked every game.
While he makes a brilliant case for Howard's success, I am still of the opinion that a player like Albert Pujols is a much better overall hitter and someone I'd take in a heartbeat. Look at Pujols' power and strikeout numbers and you'll be shocked. There is no modern hitter like him. In 2006, when he hit 49 homeruns he had just 50 strikeouts. And, in his career he has 300 homeruns in 7-plus seasons over 1170 games. Guess how many strikeouts he has? 481. That's an average of just 66.6 per season! Ryan Howard on the other hand has played 503 games (less than half of Pujols) and while he has 156 homers, he has a whopping 618 strikeouts, good for an average of 1.22 K's per game.
Give me a player that puts a ball in play anytime, versus a player who doesn't. The odds of players making errors by missing a groundball or flyball outweigh the times a player strikes out.
But, the Cardinals won't trade Albert Pujols for anybody and certainly not for Howard who will certainly command a heftier salary than Pujols currently makes.
With that said, Howard for all of his defensive woes and strikeouts has carried the Phillies on his back the past two games. He's capable of such feats. The consistency is what the Phillies need from him.
On the move?
A.J. Burnett and Erik Bedard are two pitchers the Phillies are said to be interested in.
Toronto recently sent a scout to check out some of the Phils' prospects, namely shortstop Jason Donald, Lou Marson, and Greg Golson.
According to Howard Eskin, he feels the Phillies aren't so high on Bedard though as one person in the organization referred to him as a "weird bird."
Of course, teams put out information all the time to throw other teams off their trail. Pat Gillick according to sources is very much interested in acquiring the left-hander from Seattle.
They will need to move quickly because we saw how fast Sabathia and Harden went to the Mid-West.
--------------------------------
Close, but no cigar...
So much for the four fans who were trying to get in 100,000 votes by themself at Citizen's Bank Park. Pat Burrell came third in voting for the final all-star spot.
This is fueled by the fact that any fan can vote up to 25 times for a player.
I think it's about time MLB go old school and just let people fill out All-star ballots when they go to the games. The internet age has made All-Star voting a complete joke. There is no reason in hell that Cole Hamels, Pat Burrell, or even Ryan Howard shouldn't be All-Stars.
I'll bitch about Howard's strikeouts, but he's leading the majors in homers and RBI. That alone should get you into the summer classic.
MLB should give fans a 33% overall vote, and the other 66% should be divvied up amongst players, managers, and the media.
No comments:
Post a Comment