Howard Making “History”
Following last night’s absolutely insane game between the Phillies and Mets, Ryan Howard staked claim atop the NL leaderboard with his 35th home run of the season. With a little over a month to go in the season it seems perfectly reasonable, especially given his projection, to expect six or seven more dingers, which would put him over 40 for the third straight year. This year isn’t like 2006 or 2007 for Howard, however, as once you get past the home run and RBI totals, he isn’t having anywhere near a good or great season.
In 2006, his MVP campaign, he hit .313/.425/.659. Last year, .268/.392/.584. Sure, last year was a downgrade but he still posted an OPS around the 1.000 mark and showed the ability not just to hit for power but also to work a count and get on base. This year, that slash line has plummeted to .227/.317/.477, “good” for a .794 OPS.
No, batting average does not tell the whole story, especially in the case of power hitters—the value of their hits accounts for much more than singles—but this isn’t a situation like Adam Dunn‘s, where a poor BA is masking a great OBP and SLG. All three components of Howard’s slash line are at very reduced rates. There are a few major reasons for this dropoff.
His BABIP has gone from .336 to .269 since last year. His BB-rate has dropped from 16.8% to 11.4%. And lastly, he strikes out all the time and has hit balls on the ground at an alarming rate this year (43.5% compared to 31.5% last year). You might think he has actually reduced his strikeout rate, as it went from 37% to 34%, but this isn’t exactly true. Because he has walked so much less this year, he has more official at-bats, and the punchouts cover a lesser percentage of these at-bats. Just looking at a straight up K/PA, the numbers come in around 30% for both this and last year.
Howard’s current OPS is .794. Players with marks better than his: Jason Kubel, Skip Schumaker, teammate Shane Victorino, and Stephen Drew.
His WPA/LI is 0.58. Players with marks better than his: Reed Johnson, teammate Jimmy Rollins, Ray Durham, and Ramon Santiago.
There is no way you really thought Howard would find himself alongside Jason Kubel and Ramon Santiago in any leaderboard this year. In the comments section of a recent post, someone mentioned that Howard might be having the worst 40-HR season in history. I decided to check if there have been any instances in history where a player hit 40+ home runs but failed to break the .800 OPS plateau.
The answer? No. Nobody has ever hit 40+ home runs with a sub-.800 OPS. Since offense wasn’t as prevalent in some periods back in the day I adjusted this to check for OPS+. Howard’s is barely over 100 right now, so I wanted to see if anyone has ever hit 40+ home runs with an OPS+ lower than 110. The only season I got belonged to Tony Batista, in 2000. Essentially, if Howard continues to mash dingers but fail to do anything else productive, this will be the worst 40-HR season in history, as I find it highly unlikely any other 40-HR club member ever found himself alongside the likes of Ramon Santiago or Jason Kubel in offensive categories.
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His “rise” in GB% brings him closer to his totals in 2003-2006. 2007 seems to be an outlier and we might not expect him to repeat such a low GB%.
There’s definitely some bad luck here for Howard. With a 21% LD%, he should have a higher BABIP than he has.
However, he’s also suffering from a decrease in home run rate, which is affecting his slash line. This year he has “just” 36 HR in 505 at bats; last year it was 47 in almost the same number, 529. He’s hitting the ball almost as hard (30.3 vs. 31.5% HR/FB). The explanation is that he’s hitting a lot fewer fly balls, which Dave mentions. Also, he’s hitting line drives at much closer to average rate.
I think it’s a little disconcerting that we’re seeing reduced plate discipline from Howard as he ages.
It’s not just the fewer fly balls that’s hurting him. It’s all the extra actual at-bats he has due to the big dropoff in walks as well. Like I said, his K% looks lower this year only because it’s coming in more actual at-bats. On a per/PA basis, it’s the same rate. He’s doing something wrong and, for his own sake, he better figure it out. He’s going to get money somewhere, be it with the Phillies or his new team if/when the Phils unload him, but his numbers this year are not even good for a TTO guy.
Even anecdotally, you can see the rise in groundballs from Howard. He’s opening up so fast and pulling many weak grounders to the right side. Check out spray charts at places like foxsports.com – way too many balls chopped to the right side, making for far too many 4-3, 3-1, and 3U scoring decisions.
But can the guy who inspired ryanhoward.org really be that bad?