Apples and Oranges, and Ryan Howard

by Matt Swartz on Mar 3, 2009 12:21 PM EST

Sabermetric Orthodoxy has left Ryan Howard for dead. His batting average has fallen for the last couple of years, he has put on weight, and his numbers and phenotypic characteristics remind everyone of quick fading sluggers of the past. Baseball Prospectus and Baseball-Reference each list a number of comparable players to Ryan Howard by statistics and phenotype, and things are not pretty when you look at his comparable players. I am not an expert on this kind of analysis, but I find it suspicious when it comes to Ryan Howard. Certainly, Ryan Howard’s BABIP has fallen and that has been taken by many to be a sign of his downfall. However, his strikeout rate—though very high—has been reasonably stable and certainly has not been consistently escalating. His homerun rate has only fallen slightly over the past few years as well. While it is doubtful that Howard will repeat his 2006 MVP numbers, his doom may be predicted a bit early. One thing that Bill James recently pointed out about Ryan Howard in a recent article (available to subscribers at www.BillJamesOnline.net) is that Howard is very different from David Ortiz—a player he is frequently compared to—in one very significant way. Howard hits his homeruns to leftfield. In fact, he does so more frequently than he hits homeruns to rightfield. In fact, Jeremy Greenhouse recently posted an article on BaseballAnalysts.com, where he reports that Ryan Howard is by far the most productive hitter in the league on balls hit the opposite way. While Howard’s power may erode as he gets older, his power may in fact be so strong that losing a little bit of it might not change his numbers much—only the tape measure.

I gathered a list of Howard’s comparable players according to Baseball-Reference and Baseball Prospectus—neither of whom uses batted ball data as far as I know to determine comparable players, and checked how many of their homeruns were pulled, hit to centerfield, and hit the other way. The chart may shock you.

HITTER	PULL	CTR	OPP	UNKN	P%	C%	O%
Howard	37	89	51	0	20.9	50.3	28.8
Fielder	194	93	27	28	61.8	29.6	8.6
Ortiz	168	102	19	0	58.1	35.3	6.57
Delgado	200	195	55	19	44.4	43.3	12.2
Vaughn	149	90	49	40	51.7	31.3	17
Thome	192	216	93	40	38.3	43.1	18.6
Hafner	72	68	7	0	49	46.3	4.76
Sexson	95	148	49	14	32.5	50.7	16.8
Glaus	144	134	21	5	48.2	44.8	7.02
McGriff	189	156	46	82	48.3	39.9	11.8
Balboni	37	14	3	3	68.5	25.9	5.56
Canseco	203	128	14	48	58.8	37.1	4.06
Clark	101	102	29	15	43.5	44	12.5
Klesko	142	81	29	26	56.3	32.1	11.5
Bay	57	70	22	0	38.3	47	14.8
Fielder	45	62	7	0	39.5	54.4	6.14
Morneau	64	63	6	0	48.1	47.4	4.51
Pena	80	73	10	0	49.1	44.8	6.13
Gonzalez	36	40	21	0	37.1	41.2	21.6
Durazo	39	44	7	4	43.3	48.9	7.78
LaRoche	54	50	7	0	48.6	45	6.31
Kittle	28	18	2	1	58.3	37.5	4.17

The average power hitter on this list of players who are supposed to be comparable to Ryan Howard pulls nearly 50% of their flyballs. Richie Sexson’s 32.5% was the lowest of any of the players on that list. Howard only pulls 20.8% of his flyballs. Howard hits 28.8% of his flyballs the other way. The average comparable listed for Ryan Howard hits less than 10% of his homeruns the other way—and no one does it more than Adrian Gonzalez at 21.6%. In fact, Jose Canseco hit only 4.06% of his homeruns the other way.

Let’s put it another way. Have a look at a graph of each of these supposedly similar players by pull HR%:

Check out that cluster of hitters between 40-60%. See the blue diamond down near 20%? That’s Ryan Howard. There is no one even in this range.

On the other hand, check out the cluster for opposite field percentage of homeruns

Check out the cluster of hitters under 10%...and Ryan Howard up near 30%. These are supposed to be Ryan Howard’s comparable power hitters. They certainly aren’t comparable when it comes to homerun location. The skill that Howard is being compared to them based on—being able to hit a baseball a long way—involves using very different muscles when he does it than when the other hitters do it. Is it really fair to assume that they will have similar aging patterns?

Does this mean that Ryan Howard’s critics are wrong? No. But it does certainly call into question the value of using comparable players to predict everyone and when there is such a glaring difference in Howard’s success as compared with similar sluggers, perhaps his decline will not be similar either.

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Comments

Wow

Thanks for the data Matt. Is there anyone in history who has Howard’s power who is comparable to him in these respects?

by David S. Cohen on Mar 3, 2009 12:25 PM EST reply actions

interesting

So while Howard bears superficial similarities to a number of historical players, his means of getting to those totals might exempt him from their often scary aging patterns?

http://www.thegoodphight.com

by WholeCamels on Mar 3, 2009 12:52 PM EST reply actions

I don’t know who else would be similar as far as hitting the ball the other way. No one listed on his comparables at all, at least for those players that were recent enough that hit location was actually recorded. Some of the people who were comparable from the 70s and earlier did not have hit data anywhere. Maybe there’s someone I’m not thinking of someone who wasn’t on the list as well. Any ideas?

Yeah, I do wonder if he’s exempt from their aging patterns since the kinds of things that he does well involve doing very different things. It’s not like I’m sure he won’t or that he won’t even age faster, but what Ryan Howard seems to be dominating the league by doing is swinging to hit the ball to left. That’s a bit of a different skill than swinging to hit the ball to right and it involves hitting different pitches out as well. If the reason that Mo Vaughn fell off a cliff is that he could no longer reach the high inside fastballs in time to pull them out, perhaps Howard will still be able to reach the low outside fastballs that he knocks out over the leftfield wall. And maybe those muscles age differently well; I wouldn’t know.

by Matt Swartz on Mar 3, 2009 1:13 PM EST reply actions

nice work

I noticed Thome was one of the few sluggers who put the ball the other way a decent amount. Coincidence?

Also, Howard actually rebounded to his 06 numbers in terms of RBI Production last season. He was back above 1.7 RBIs per each full RBI opporutinty. If he can keep continue to keep that number high, he’ll be among the leaders in RBIs for years to come.

http://www.thephaithful.com/aeRatio/index.asp

by thephaithful on Mar 3, 2009 1:47 PM EST reply actions

Howard’s numbers have gotten progressively worse over the last two seasons. That is my biggest concern regarding him. But I don’t worry as much about him aging quickly because some of his comps did. In fact, some of his best comps had pretty long, productive careers. Regardless, Howard is probably better than most of the comps on his various lists. His 2007 comp list at BP had a similarity index of 33. 50 means the guy is pretty common and a score of 20 means the player is very unusual. I’d guess a 33 means Howard was fairly unique.

This is an important year for Howard I think. He needs to regain some of his form from his MVP year — mostly by getting on base more. I don’t expect him to duplicate his great 2006. But he needs to reverse his downward spiral. I think he will.

Your observations are cause for some optimism in this regard. My one caution would be this: What has Howard’s opposite field trend been? Hasn’t he actually been getting more pull happy over the last two seasons? If so, that’s something to watrch for this season that will be interesting.

I think Howard will not age as quickly as some of his harshest critics believe. But I think he needs to reverse his downward production spiral. Your article gives us another reason to believe he may do just that.

by smitty99 on Mar 3, 2009 5:28 PM EST reply actions

2008: 17% pull, 54% center, 29% oppo
2007: 34% pull, 55% center, 11% oppo
2006: 16% pull, 45% center, 40% oppo
2005: 14% pull, 46% center, 40% oppo
(2004: 2 HR only, one pulled, one center)

Clearly he isn’t hitting as many balls the opposite way as he did in 2005-2006, but the Phillies did move the fences back after 2005, and that was only half a season. Certainly, he had a pull-heavy season in 2007, but in 2008 he reverted back to hitting balls the other way. I think this has as much to do with pitch location as anything. In 2006, it seemed like pitchers repeatedly threw pitches low and away to avoid him and he just kept pounding them out to left. Then, in 2007, pitchers started trying to bust him inside and he started pulling the ball more.

Howard’s on-base skill primarily plummeted this year with his BABIP and intentional walk rate. I’m not totally optimistic on his BABIP rebounding completely, but I do think it should go back up a decent amount. His intentional walk rate is probably going to partly depend on how scared pitchers are of him, which depends again partly on his BABIP.

by Matt Swartz on Mar 3, 2009 6:12 PM EST up reply actions

I wonder what percentage of pitches where thrown outside to Howard as opposed to the rest of his comparable group. And then, what percentage were offspeed? From just watching him last year it seemed opposing pitchers absolutely lived low and outside against him especially with back-door sliders and curves. Generally, if the pitcher hit his spot, Howard swung and missed. If he couldnt get it outside enough, it went deep opposite field. Many times, Howard was so dialed in on offspeed junk that when he got legit heat over the inside part of the plate he would be late and send it opposite field as well. My guess is that Howard’s “skill” of hitting opposite field is a product of pitcher’s determination to throw low and away junk to him (probably because that’s the best way to pitch him).

by BrandonB on Mar 5, 2009 1:15 PM EST up reply actions

Maybe

Maybe. On the other hand, I’d bet a lot of the guys on that list saw a lot of outside pitches. Pitchers used to live on the outside of the plates before metal bats took over college and little leagues. That’s probably why people didn’t used to get HBP so many times, according to what I’ve read. Certainly, pitchers do live on the outside vs Howard and his approach is clearly to go oppo when they do.

by Matt Swartz on Mar 5, 2009 3:17 PM EST up reply actions

I’m sure a lot of those guys saw outside pitches, but I’d also bet many of them had such great plate discipline and/or outside plate coverage that consistently going outside was not a viable strategy for pitching against them. Ortiz for example, from the what I’ve seen as a fan, seems to rarely go fishing low and outside like Howard does.

by BrandonB on Mar 5, 2009 3:50 PM EST reply actions

True, Ortiz is a very different hitter. He doesn’t strikeout nearly as much, he hits more flyballs, and he pulls his homeruns— some of that is the Green Monster, but in reality, he is not quite the same hitter. Howard has a bit more power though.

by Matt Swartz on Mar 5, 2009 5:53 PM EST up reply actions