Are You Kidding Me?!
Written by Mike on January 30, 2008 – 1:42 am -
Pujols is in the news again. Phillies’ first baseman, Ryan Howard, is arbitration eligible, and is comparing himself to Cardinals’ slugger Albert Pujols. Apparently, there is a $3 million difference in exchanged figures for the arbitration case, but Howard is seeking a long term deal worth somewhere between Pujols’ contract and Alex Rodriguez’s last bounty. Just the thought of this makes me laugh. I understand that the market has changed since Albert’s signing, but Ryan Howard should never, ever be compared to either of the other two superstars. Howard isn’t even the best player in Philadelphia. Here are a couple of links to the story. If you’re an ESPN Insider, click here. If not, get a quick summary from MLB Trade Rumors here. Be sure to check out the comments after the latter, too. There’s some funny stuff there. I thought about comparing the numbers of Howard and Pujols for you, but I don’t think that’s necessary.
Posted in Pujols |
By Anonymous on Jan 31, 2008 | Reply
ALL the long term numbers tossed around are PURE speculation. Howard doesn’t compare himself to Pujols, its the cheap Phillies that reference him when it comes to why he should only get paid certain amounts of money at contract time.
The 7 mil Pujols got was 4 years ago. I wouldn’t be excited about my boss referencing 2004 pay scales when the discussion of my raise comes up, either. I guess NO ONE is EVER supposed to get more than $7 mil in 1st year arb, since its written in stone somewhere. And God forbid you have a ROY and MVP sitting on the discussion table with you, because obviously only service time and comparable salaries count, not achievements.
You hold the guy down in the minors too long (MVP in single-A in 2003, Mvp in triple-A in 2004). When you let him up (ROY in 2005, NL MVP in 2006). Why play hard ball with this guy? How much more does he need to prove? Could he improve his defense? Sure. Could he work on striking out less? Absolutely (even though he has shown that the K’s don’t always effect his avg.–he hit .313 w/ 181 K in 06).
He has hit more HR and RBI in the last two years than ANYONE in the MLB, walks a ton, and OBP is excellent. what more do you want out of the clean up spot? And for a kid that was born and raised in STL, its a shame he gets no love here at all.
By Mike on Jan 31, 2008 | Reply
Howard is a very good ballplayer. But he’s not a ridiculously great one, a la Rodriguez or Pujols. When he does make contact, the ball goes a long way. That’s neat.
“Could he work on striking out less?”
Well, I would hope so. Howard struck out more than any batter in the league last year. He had 33 more Ks than than the second place finisher, Uggla, who had 103 more ABs. If that wasn’t bad enough, Howard broke the record in ‘07 for the most strikeouts in a season, with 199. Last year he struck out 37.6% of the time. I’d say yes. He could work on striking out less.
You bring up his 2006 average, but not his 2007. Is that because he only hit .269? Wow! That’s kinda like Pujols and Rodriguez too! Wait. ARod has been in the league for 12 years, and has a career .306 avg. Pujols, for 7 years, and has a career .332 avg. Howard has a career .291 in his only 3+ seasons.
So he must be a good defensive first baseman right? Not only is he not great. He’s not good. He’s downright bad. According to the defensive rankings, Howard is better than only one NL first baseman: Fielder.
Again, you cannot compare Howard to Pujols or ARod. I’m not sure who you can compare him to. Maybe Adam Dunn?
As far as the salary goes, I did mention the changing market in my post. Ryan Howard will get his big payday. Problem is, the Phillies will later regret giving it to him.