Is Philadelphia Phillies’ Ryan Howard Overrated?

Traditionalist baseball fans always point to the stats that they grew up with: home runs, RBI’s, errors and wins. Using such stats, the Philadelphia Phillies‘ Ryan Howard deserves to be a perennial All-Star. However, the new advanced analysis tools and formulas give a greater look into a player’s true value by encompassing every aspect of his game. Through the lens of these new figures, the question must be asked: Is Howard overrated?

To a casual baseball fan, a player’s defensive prowess is defined by how many errors he has committed. While that is a valuable factor in determining defensive ability, it is only one part of a larger picture. Also important is the range of a player, as players with more range will get to more balls and prevent more runs, even though that never shows up in the box score.

Not giving up runs is just as important as scoring runs. While that is obvious, it is not obvious in normal stat calculations and fans’ perceptions of a player.

The best statistic to incorporate every aspect of a player’s game is WAR (Wins Above Replacement).  WAR essentially looks at a player and asks the question, “If this player got injured and their team had to replace him with a minor league player or someone from their bench, how much value would the team be losing?” This value is expressed in a wins format.  A 2.0 WAR rating for a season is considered average, while 0 is considered a replacement-level player.

Ryan Howard finished the 2011 season with a 1.6 WAR rating, which is below average.  Using 400 at bats as a qualifier, Howard finished 20th in WAR out of just first basemen in MLB in 2011.

In 2010, his WAR figure was 1.4.  With a large group of people always thinking that Howard is a year-to-year MVP contender, how can this be? It’s because the stats that you see in the box score are considerably different from what you see in an advanced analysis.

As good as Howard is at knocking in runs, he is equally bad at giving them up.  Howard finished 2011 giving up nine more runs than an average player fielding his position. His advanced base running statistics also show that he was nine runs below average with his speed on the bases, which was the second worst out of all first basemen with 400 plate appearances.

Howard’s fans have often said that in 2011 Howard had no protection, that other teams were not pitching to him, or were giving him all off-speed pitches. However, in 2009, which was Howard’s last above average year in WAR, 44.8% of the pitches he faced were fastballs, while in 2011 that number was 44.9%. He also faced a slightly higher percentage of sliders and curve balls in 2009 than he did in 2011.

The perception is that Ryan Howard is an elite slugger, but the reality is that he has declined significantly from his 2006 to 2009 years, and is now just average.

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