Ryan Howard's Second 36 Games

by David S. Cohen on Jun 17, 2008 2:54 PM EDT

On May 9, I took a look at Ryan Howard's first 36 games of the season. The start of the season, in which he hit .165/.285/.331, was clearly the worst 36-game performance of his career.

Since then, he's played in another 36 games, and there's not much to complain about anymore. His second-36 game triple-slash numbers are .277/.360/.645 for a nice 1.005 OPS. His .645 SLG is just a bit short of his MVP-year .659 SLG. His eye could use a bit of improvement though, as his walk to strikeout ratio of 17:46 is significantly short of the ratios he's posted over the past two years (better than 1:2 each year).

His raw counting numbers have been very impressive. Over the last 36 games, he has 13 home runs, 45 RBI, and 32 runs scored. Translated to a full season, those numbers are monstrous: 59 home runs, 203 RBI, and 144 runs scored. Of course, the last two numbers are largely because of the incredible lineup he's in, but there's no reason to think he'll have fewer RBI or run scoring opportunities as the season goes on.

With Howard performing as we expected, Rollins and Victorino healthy, and Burrell and Utley playing like MVPs, this lineup is back where it belongs.

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He’s been intensely streaky (maybe mini-streaky is a better way to describe it) and a little unlucky thanks to the shift and just hitting balls hard right at outfielders. I haven’t looked at his line-drive percentage, but I bet it’s close to last year.

I’m encouraged by what I’ve heard from both Ryan and Charlie about Howard “waiting for the ball to come to him.” When he does that, he’s money.

by dajafi on Jun 17, 2008 4:47 PM EDT 0 recs

Mini-streaky?

Isn’t mini-streaky, in some sense, the same as consistent?

by David S. Cohen on Jun 17, 2008 10:58 PM EDT up 0 recs

I meant that he seems to have four- or five-game stretches in which he’s dominant, followed by similarly short runs where he’s 1-15 with 11 strikeouts and an intentional walk.

Admittedly, this reads like and maybe is a brain-dead “I watch the games” kinda argument.

by dajafi on Jun 18, 2008 10:35 AM EDT up 0 recs

I guess my point is that this is what you’d expect from any baseball player who isn’t machine-consistent, right? If someone is going to end the season at .300, there’s no way that the 3 out of 10 hits are going to be perfectly evenly distributed. Someone who is “mini-streaky” is probably going to be the best real-world instantiation of consistency we can see in a game in which failure is the norm. Right?

by David S. Cohen on Jun 18, 2008 2:28 PM EDT up 0 recs

What does mini-streaky mean?

I think an unqualified “streaky” describes his season so far, at least based on David Cohen’s analysis. A month-plus hitting like Abe Nunez followed by a month-plus hitting like… well, Ryan Howard is pretty much streaky by definition.

by phatj on Jun 18, 2008 7:37 AM EDT 0 recs