A CITIZEN'S BLOG

It is hard not to be impressed by Ryan Howard’s season thus far. Any threat of a sophomore slump seems to have fallen by the wayside as Howard continues a frenetic pace of his slugging. As I write this, Ryan Howard is third in the NL in home runs with 22, three behind Ablert Pujols (25). Howard is also third in the NL in RBIs with 54, eleven behind Pujols (65). He’s also fifth in the NL in slugging percentage (.621), again behind Albert Pujols (.751). He’s a near-lock to represent the Phillies at the All-Star game in Pittsburgh in a few weeks and I’d be stunned if he weren’t the starting NL 1B.

But something bugs me about the Phillies these days. As I mentioned yesterday and a few days ago, the Phillies aren’t playing to their potential and I wonder why. Why do the D-backs have a better record with half the talent?

I was paging through my old 2005 Bill James Handbook and I was re-reading James' notes on how the Runs Created formula had to be re-done to reflect changes in the game. James noted that the ’03 Red Sox weren’t as successful as they should have been, given how well they hit. James tagged the problem as being that the Red Sox weren’t advancing base-runners, and thus the actual team runs lagged behind their Runs Created. In fact, James generally found that to be the problem associated with the Runs Created formula.

Well, I was thinking about why the D-backs were winning and scoring more runs and the Phillies weren’t, despite the fact that the Phillies should be much more potent at the plate than the D-backs. I came up, in my post, with a solution to the problem: the D-backs were hitting very well with runners in scoring position. They were advancing runners in scoring position. The Phillies were / have not. Look at this:

BA / RISP:
Chase Utley: .375
Bobby Abreu: .333
David Bell: .277
Aaron Rowand: .275
Ryan Howard: .226
Pat Burrell: .211
Jimmy Rollins: .209

Ryan Howard doesn’t advance runners the way he ought to. He may hit towering home runs, but his contribution to the Phillies offense is far less important than Bobby Abreu and Chase Utley’s. When runners are in scoring position, Ryan Howard is more likely than anyone (except Pat Burrell and J.Roll) to come up empty

Now I think most people will hasten to note that Pat Burrell is sucking things up right now. Fair enough. He is. But Burrell has performed well at this in the past:

BA / RISP:
2005: .313
2004: .263

In both situations Burrell’s batting average rose when runners were in scoring position: +.032 in 2005, +.006 in 2004 … Not so with Ryan Howard. His .226 BA / RISP is not much better than his 2005: .241. This year and last, Howard has seen his BA fall with runners in scoring position: -.067 in 2006 and -.048 in 2005 when he won the NL Rookie of the Year award. So it doesn’t seem likely that Ryan Howard is just unlucky. He seems like he can’t drive runners home with any consistency aside from blasting a mega-home run.

Sure Ryan Howard is clubbing the heck out of the ball. But what is he doing when he doesn’t hit home runs? Not much. Of Ryan Howard’s 141 total bases, 88 – roughly 63% – are the product of his 22 home runs. Ryan Howard is feast or famine. And herein lays the problem: I think that power-hitting works better than “small-ball”. But the ability to advance runners from first to third and from third to home, is the sine qua non of modern baseball. Chase Utley, for example, gets just 36% of his total bases off home runs. He has more doubles than homers. And he’s hitting .375 with runners on second and/or third.

So I think that Ryan Howard is a little over-rated. I know I’ll get a lot of outraged mail, but I think that it is worth discussing. Thoughts?