He Hit When It Counted!
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.
Great article, can I add how it drives me up a wall to hear someone paid to talk about this game say “the games in September mean more” It truly makes me want to scream : )
Good stuff here. I’m with Mike, nothing bothers me more than this “only September and October count” nonsense.
This is the same mentatlity that makes the closer such an “elite” position, and it bothers me, too.
Agree 100%. Why is no one listening?
BTW, I’d use caution comparing full-season guys like Howard and short-season guys like Ramirez. WPA or WPA/LI compares a player to average, which makes it easier for a player with less playing time to do relatively well. Example: Felix Hernandez had 0.3 batting WPA in one plate appearance. That’s why replacement level is a better baseline — it does a better job of including playing time.
Studes, good point. When we use VORP, we see that Howard had a 35.6 and Ramirez, only with LAD, had 47.2, so unless there is something screwy there, Manny in his 229 LAD plate appearances was worth a full win better than Howard.
From Joe Posnanski:
“King Kaufman over at Salon wrote something the other day that I really liked. He wrote that the methodology for some voters seems to be: “Figure out who you like as MVP, then fashion the current year’s definition of ‘valuable’ to fit.”
I think that’s about right. I understand why people would want to vote for Ryan Howard as MVP. It fits a neat story line. We don’t want our MVPs to just be the boring ol’ best player — no, we want them to be superheroes, we want to ascribe to them some sort of mystical talents that lift teams above their modest means and carry them to unforeseen heights. We want to believe that the MVP — and the MVP alone — could have lifted them higher than they’ve ever been lifted before.”
Again the thing that gets me is the ignorance of it all. I hear beat writers in interviews state that they simply cant cover it all. My question is why not? There is so much technology (DVR, Extra innings package anyone) and web sites that do all the leg work for you. I think that they continue to ignore the numbers is simply nothing more then laziness.
For anyone that thinks April and May don’t count, then I have another cliched saying that talking heads continuously spout out:
“You can’t win a division in April, but you can certainly lose one.”
Also a devout Phillies fan, I completely agree Howard shouldn’t have been seriously considered as the MVP. But as far as hitting when it counted, he kind of did that all year. What I mean is RISP. The guy hit over .300 all year w/ RISP. In fact he hit .322 w/ RISP and 2 outs. These number were sustained all year. I remember when he was hitting .210, he was still hitting .330 w/ RISP.
The terrible thing is he hit .196 and had an OBP of .281 w/ nobody on. He is an extremely athletic talent, he makes great defensive plays, but mentally is not in the game and was anything but sure-handed when it came to routine plays. Countless times the guy would get a groundball and not know what base to go too, screwing up double-plays and sometimes not even getting an out.
However, the knock is a little hard on him. He is a tremendous run producer and I think he will have a huge season next year if Mr. Rollins can get back on track.
Howard and RISP v. nobody on:
Doesn’t this probably have something to do with the shift? Much more likely to see the shift with nobody on. If that’s the case, though, do steals for the Phillies acquire more value if they can add .140 to his batting average? I think the stats (from ESPN) confirm this.
PA AB 1B HR 2B+3B BB K
RISP 216 175 33 12 11 41 54
Empty 348 312 29 22 10 36 111
1B only 127 123 13 14 9 4 34
His XBH rate does go up with RISP, but there’s a much bigger difference in the 1B rate. He also did even better with power in 1B only situations, but the singes rate stayed the same as with bases empty. I think the evidence is that much of Howard’s RISP improvement is due to the absence of the shift.
Ack. Formatting my stats disappeared. I’ll try again:
PA AB 1B HR 2B+3B BB K
RISP 216 175 33 12 11 41 54
Empty 348 312 29 22 10 36 111
1B only 127 123 13 14 9 4 34
Don’t forget the comparison. Howard hit well with runners in scoring position, but here is how he compared to Pujols:
Howard
Scoring Position .320/.439/.589/1.028
Scoring Posn, 2 out .322/.468/.552/1.020
Pujols
Scoring Position .339/.523/.678/1.201
Scoring Posn, 2 out .326/.592/.791/1.383
Just for kicks, I’ll let you decide whose “close and late” line is whose:
.158/.306/.337/.643
.314/.444/.600/1.044