Back on the Ryan Howard Bandwagon

Posted by Bill Baer on Monday, March 30, 2009 at 5:35 am

We have seen Ryan Howard barge his way into the Majors in 2005 when he won the NL Rookie of the Year award, slug his way to the NL MVP award in 2006, then take a precipitous fall from his ‘06 OPS+ of 167 to 144 in ‘07 to 124 last year. With Howard, optimism has turned into pessimism. How much of our newfound pessimism is legitimate?

I, myself, have called Howard “overrated” and suggested that the Phillies should trade him sooner rather than later when they may be stuck paying an astronomical salary to a player who may not be all that productive. However, in the last couple months reading the arguments and counter-arguments as to how we should view the big man, I’ve hopped back on the optimism bandwagon.

I was particularly convinced that the comparisons of Howard to other “large” sluggers, who had rapid high peaks but steep freefalls, was misguided after reading an article by Matt Swartz of The Good Phight on March 3. He wrote:

These are supposed to be Ryan Howard’s comparable power hitters. They certainly aren’t comparable when it comes to homerun location. The skill that Howard is being compared to them based on—being able to hit a baseball a long way—involves using very different muscles when he does it than when the other hitters do it. Is it really fair to assume that they will have similar aging patterns?

Does this mean that Ryan Howard’s critics are wrong? No. But it does certainly call into question the value of using comparable players to predict everyone and when there is such a glaring difference in Howard’s success as compared with similar sluggers, perhaps his decline will not be similar either.

One word that describes Howard aptly is “unprecedented.” We really have not seen a player with his build and his skill set and his level of production. There may not be — and there may never be — a truly comparable player to him, so our attempts to project his success to be short-lived may be misguided.

A frequent criticism of Howard is his increasing inability to hit left-handed pitching. In 2006, he had a .923 OPS in 225 plate appearances against lefties. In ‘07, he declined to an .826 OPS in 246 PA, and in ‘08, fell to a .746 OPS in 265 PA. As he saw lefties more, the worse he did.

Last year, 38% of Howard’s plate appearances came against southpaws — a very high percentage. Teammate and fellow lefty Chase Utley, frequently in the #3 spot in the lineup ahead of Howard, also faced southpaws in 38% of his at-bats. Their other teammates didn’t face lefties nearly as much, suggesting that opposing managers were trying to get an advantage against Utley and Howard by bringing in lefty specialists.

What will work in Howard’s favor is that he presumably will not have to face lefties as much in 2009. An incomplete list of lefties who were in the NL East last year and are either out of the NL East or will not be getting significant playing time in ‘09 (with Howard’s ‘08 PA against them in parentheses)…

• Billy Wagner (4)
• Scott Schoenweis (5)
• Mike Hampton (8)
• Jo-Jo Reyes (11)
• Will Ohman (10)
• Royce Ring (6)
• Mark Hendrickson (6)
• Arthur Rhodes (2)
• Ray King (1)
• TOTAL: 53 out of 265 (20%)

Of course, some or most of these lefties may be replaced by other lefties but they will be of the farm system variety and not the “proven veteran LOOGY” that describes most of the guys on the list. In other words, Howard will not be facing nearly as many pitchers designed to get hitters like him out on a daily basis.

Currently, the following NL East teams have these lefty relievers on their active roster (Howard’s OPS against in parentheses):

• New York Mets: Pedro Feliciano (.523 OPS)
• Atlanta Braves: Mike Gonzalez (.821)
• Florida Marlins: Renyel Pinto (.650)
• Washington Nationals: Joe Beimel (.500)

Additionally, a couple factors related to Howard’s decline last year may simply be aberrant. Noticing his .425 and .392 OBP’s of ‘06 and ‘07 next to his ‘08 OBP of .339 may be alarming at first. Even look at his walk totals of 108 and 107 in ‘06 and ‘07 to 81 last year. However, he had 37 and 35 intentional walks in those two years and just 17 last season, more than a 50% decline. What that signifies, though, is that his unintentional walk rates haven’t changed much.

2006: 71 unintentional walks in 667 PA (10.6%)
2007: 72 unintentional walks in 613 PA (11.7%)
2008: 64 unintentional walks in 683 PA (9.4%)

Note that for the plate appearance totals, I subtracted the intentional walks totals from the overall PA totals.

The other aberrant factor is his BABIP. In an article from January 16, Matt Swartz comes to the conclusion that a BABIP of .310-.320 is most likely where Howard will land this season. If you want to know how he came to that conclusion, scroll about 75% down the page where he goes over the BABIP for several Phillies including Howard.

Until ‘08, Howard always enjoyed a high BABIP: .358, .363, and .336 in the three years prior, then .289 last year. Note that the two lowest BABIPs of the four-year period occurred when opposing managers employed the shift as often as possible.

Comparing Howard’s BABIP with the bases empty as opposed to when runners are on base is a good way to ascertain the effect the shift has on him. When the bases are empty, managers should and do employ the shift; when runners are on base, they cannot afford to do so. E – R in the chart above and to the right is the difference in BABIP with the bases empty as opposed to when runners are on base. The following graph illustrates it further:

Perhaps referring to this portion of Howard’s “missing” BABIP as aberrant is wrong. It is, on the other hand, something that can be re-gained with a slight change in strategy at the plate.

Power-wise, Howard didn’t decline all that much, if at all. He had a .292 ISO, slightly below his career average of .311, but he tied a career high with 26 doubles and hit 48 home runs as well. If we are expecting Howard to lose power, that expectation is based purely on conjecture. For instance, Howard is projected by Baseball Prospectus 2009 to hit 40 home runs this season. After three straight full seasons of 58, 47, and 48 dingers, what makes them think that, in his age 29 season, Howard will lose 17% of his homers?

To be fair, BP2009 isn’t projecting him to fall off the face of the Earth, but that precipitous drop in power is befuddling.
While I’m looking at Howard’s entry in BP2009, they call him a “no-defense” first baseman. Fun game: of first baseman over the last three seasons, name the player one spot ahead of Howard in UZR/150.

If you said Prince Fielder — nope. Mike Jacobs — wrong. Carlos Delgado — nah uh.

It’s Mark Teixeira. If you run a Google search for Tex and “defense,” you’ll get nothing but praise. Over that three-year period, Teixeira had a UZR/150 of 1.5. Ryan Howard was at 0.9. The difference between the two is six-tenths of one run in a 150-game span. I bet you never thought you’d read this: Ryan Howard’s defense is underrated!

Howard certainly isn’t a Hoover vacuum over at first base, but he isn’t bad and he’s been steadily improving:

• 2005: -1.2 UZR/150
• 2006: -0.5
• 2007: 0.1
• 2008: 2.6

When it comes to Ryan Howard, we make a lot of assumptions based on not a whole lot of actual evidence. We pigeonhole the guy, calling him a one-dimensional out-of-shape tub o’ lard who is going to crash and burn in epic fashion.

The truth is that we really don’t have enough information — fancy that — to make a reasonable conclusion as to how best to project him. In other words, we are unable to reject the null hypothesis that Howard will be more like his 2005-07 self than his ‘08 self.