Ryan Howards Unique Journey to the Big Leagues

Ryan Howard’s Unique Journey to the Big Leagues John D. Cappello jcappello@optimal-design. com Cell 609 -970 -4779 1

Ryan Howard’s Unique Journey to the Big Leagues By John D. Cappello Introduction • • • SABR Member since 2007 Stats & Strat-o-matic fanatic in ’ 70 s MSEE Drexel University – Comp HW Engineer • “Stealing Greatness” coming March 2010 2

Ryan Howard’s Unique Journey to the Big Leagues By John D. Cappello • Bill James: “Any hitter who is destined to become a great ballplayer will reach the The Great Ones Arrive Early majors at an early age. I know of no clearcut exception to this rule in the history of • • baseball. ” 27 years ago in 1982 Abstract One exception: Ryan Howard Late arrival defies all that he’s accomplished so far Delay more complicated than just Jim Thome 3

Ryan Howard’s Unique Journey to the Big Leagues By John D. Cappello • • Power hitter • • 500 HR club Ruth: pitcher to hitter Mc. Gwire/Schmidt • Comparison to greats 4 a

Ryan Howard’s Unique Journey to the Big Leagues By John D. Cappello • • Howard 2+ yrs later Starter at 26 1/2 4 b

Ryan Howard’s Unique Journey to the Big Leagues By John D. Cappello • • • 400 HR club Active projections Mc. Griff 4 c

Ryan Howard’s Unique Journey to the Big Leagues By John D. Cappello • Howard still 2+ yrs • later RH “latest bloomer” 4 d

Ryan Howard’s Unique Journey to the Big Leagues By John D. Cappello • • • Other half of story HR Rate Mc. Gwire: 2 halves RH: mind-boggling Disclaimer RH: Expect a drop 5

Ryan Howard’s Unique Journey to the Big Leagues By John D. Cappello Ryan’s HUGE Career Numbers YEAR AGE GAMES AB RUNS HR RBI AVE SLG AWARDS Ralph Kiner’s HRs 2004 24 19 39 5 2 5 . 282 . 564 Eastern League MVP (2003 Fla. St. Lg MVP) -- 2005 25 88 312 52 22 63 . 288 . 567 ROY 23 (age 23) 2006 26 159 581 104 58 149 . 313 . 659 SS, MVP 51 (age 24) 2007 27 144 529 94 47 136 . 268 . 584 MVP-5 40 (age 25) 2008 28 162 610 105 48 146 . 251 . 543 MVP-2 54 (age 26) 572 2071 360 177 499 . 279 . 590 TOTALS • • Start like Kiner’s 168 Fastest to 100 games Benchmark – MVP voting 56 HRs on 9/8/2006 6

Ryan Howard’s Unique Journey to the Big Leagues By John D. Cappello CITIBANK MYTH – Raw HRs Ryan Howard’s Home Runs YEAR HOME AWAY TOTAL • • Exaggerated influence 2004 1 1 2 Citibank Park great place to hit 2005 11 11 22 • RH: No preference 2006 29 29 58 2007 23 24 47 2008 26 22 48 CAREER 90 (50. 8%) 87 (49. 2%) 177 7 a

Ryan Howard’s Unique Journey to the Big Leagues By John D. Cappello • • • Forbes Field and Ralph Kiner Demo of sig. ballpark effect 1946 – Forbes Left Field 365’ 1947 – Greenberg, bullpen (18/25) “Greenberg’s Gardens” => “Kiner’s Korner” Kiner: 62% HRs at Forbes ’ 47 -’ 52 RH: ballpark not so obvious *SABR HR Log – David Vincent Ralph Kiner’s Home Runs* YEAR HOME AWAY TOTAL 1946 8 15 23 1947 28 23 51 1948 31 9 40 1949 29 25 54 1950 27 20 47 1951 26 11 37 1952 22 13 35 ’ 47 -’ 52 163 (61. 7%) 101 (38. 3%) 264 7 b

Ryan Howard’s Unique Journey to the Big Leagues By John D. Cappello CITIBANK MYTH – HR Rate • • Ryan Howard’s Home Run Rate (AB/HR) Get around “absolute-ness” raw #’s Slight favor to Citibank Park YEAR HOME AWAY TOTAL 14. 1 still 40+ HRs in 600 AB RH: Monster HR hitter anywhere 2004 13. 0 26. 0 19. 5 2005 13. 0 15. 4 14. 2 2006 9. 7 10. 3 10. 0 2007 10. 9 11. 6 11. 3 2008 11. 5 14. 1 12. 7 CAREER 11. 0 12. 5 11. 7 7 c

Ryan Howard’s Unique Journey to the Big Leagues By John D. Cappello Howard’s Scatter Plot - 2006 season (hittrackeronline. com) • • • Excellent distribution Typical pwr hitter will pull smaller “wheelhouse” in strike zone RH: no safe spot horizontally 8 a

Ryan Howard’s Unique Journey to the Big Leagues By John D. Cappello Howard’s Scatter Plot - 2007 season (hittrackeronline. com) 8 b

Ryan Howard’s Unique Journey to the Big Leagues By John D. Cappello Howard’s Scatter Plot - 2008 season (hittrackeronline. com) 8 c

Ryan Howard’s Unique Journey to the Big Leagues By John D. Cappello Pujols’s Scatter Plot - 2006 season (hittrackeronline. com) • • > 50% pulled Even for high-average hitter 8 d

Ryan Howard’s Unique Journey to the Big Leagues By John D. Cappello • • King of the K Write down 180 -200 K’s MReynolds, JCust Theory: HRs come at expense of K’s, lower AVE But, wait a minute…he did hit. 313 in ’ 06 Charlie Manual, 2004: “He doesn’t strike out because he strides too quick and tries to hit the ball too hard…he strikes out because he waits to see the ball. He lets the ball get too deep on him, and he kind of rushes. And that’s a good sign. That’s very good. ” 9 a

Ryan Howard’s Unique Journey to the Big Leagues By John D. Cappello Ryan’s Hot and Cold Streaks • • Examined game-by-game #’s for trends Difficult with Pujols, Musial, Gwynn RH: #’s show definite ON-OFF switch Judgment call 9 b

Ryan Howard’s Unique Journey to the Big Leagues By John D. Cappello Ryan’s Hot and Cold Streaks COLD . 159 – 20 HR – 248 K (20 HR, 240 K per 600 AB) HOT . 331 – 155 HR – 431 K (66 HR, 182 K per 600 AB) • • (Career Split: 70/30) RH: Individual seasons have similar splits Batting AVE correlated with HRs Don’t talk about GThomas, RDeer, DKingman RH: Different breed 9 c

Ryan Howard’s Unique Journey to the Big Leagues By John D. Cappello Historically great success, so…WHAT TOOK HIM SO LONG? • • • We know about Thome Elite HR Hitters in history + Bill James RH: What was so “un-special” early on? Jeff Manto (Howard’s manager at single-A in Lakewood): n n “Too raw – no fundamentals” “Far from major league ready – no sure thing” “Had to hit his way to the big leagues” “Developmental joy. ” Mike Arbuckle (Phils asst. GM during Howard’s development): n “Club philosophy: Player development takes time” (see Utley, Chase) n “Ryan had contact issues” n “Flier in the 5 th round” n “Rather have Thome for new ballpark” n “Other teams also concerned” (trade rejections) 10

Ryan Howard’s Unique Journey to the Big Leagues By John D. Cappello How did Albert do it? • • • Practically same age 4 years difference ROYs Pujols: Unwanted to Superstar in < 2 years 11

Ryan Howard’s Unique Journey to the Big Leagues By John D. Cappello Concluding Remarks… Two basic observations • With HR spread to all fields +. 331 AVE during HR streaks = “NEVER TRY TO PULL!” • With late arrival + dominating performance, RH one-of-a-kind in history, will follow WStargell, WMc. Covey into HOF n Questions?

Ryan Howard’s Unique Journey to the Big Leagues By John D. Cappello Special thanks to: • www. baseball-reference. com • SABR HR Log (David Vincent) • www. hittrackeronline. com (Greg Rybarczyk) • www. highbeam. com • Jeff Manto • Mike Arbuckle

Ryan Howard’s Unique Journey to the Big Leagues By John D. Cappello

Ryan Howard’s Unique Journey to the Big Leagues By John D. Cappello Ryan Howard: pitch-by-pitch breakdown YEAR SWUNG %MISS HR/SWING AB/HR HR/CONTACT 2004 93 49. 2% 34. 4% 2. 2% 19. 5 7. 7% 2005 656 47. 5% 30. 5% 3. 4% 14. 2 10. 3% 2006 1251 43. 3% 33. 1% 4. 6% 10. 0 14. 3% 2007 1181 42. 5% 35. 5% 4. 0% 11. 3 13. 9% 2008 1316 46. 5% 34. 0% 3. 6% 12. 7 11. 5% 4497 44. 7% 33. 6% 3. 9% 11. 7 12. 6% Albert Pujols: pitch-by-pitch breakdown YEAR %SWUNG %MISS HR/SWING AB/HR HR/CONTACT 2001 42. 4% 21. 0% 3. 1% 15. 9 7. 3% 2002 40. 3% 15. 7% 3. 2% 17. 4 6. 5% 2003 42. 1% 13. 9% 4. 0% 13. 7 8. 1% 2004 42. 1% 12. 7% 4. 3% 12. 9 8. 4% 2005 39. 4% 13. 8% 14. 4 7. 8% 2006 39. 8% 13. 8% 5. 1% 10. 9 10. 0% 2007 36. 7% 11. 0% 3. 1% 17. 7 6. 2% 2008 38. 0% 9. 8% 3. 9% 14. 2 7. 7%

Ryan Howard’s Unique Journey to the Big Leagues By John D. Cappello Barry Bonds: pitch-by-pitch breakdown YEAR AGE HRS AVE SWUNG %MISS HR/SWING AB/HR HR/CONTACT 1993 28 46 0. 336 971 38. 7% 14. 6% 4. 7% 11. 7 10. 0% 1994 29 37 0. 312 669 39. 2% 14. 6% 5. 5% 10. 6 11. 1% 1995 30 33 0. 294 857 37. 7% 15. 4% 3. 9% 15. 3 8. 7% 1996 31 42 0. 308 883 35. 7% 14. 2% 4. 8% 12. 3 10. 2% 1997 32 40 0. 291 899 35. 3% 18. 1% 4. 4% 13. 3 9. 5% 1998 33 37 0. 303 899 37. 3% 15. 6% 4. 1% 14. 9 8. 8% 1999 34 34 0. 262 686 40. 6% 15. 3% 5. 0% 10. 4 11. 7% 2000 35 49 0. 306 918 37. 6% 16. 1% 5. 3% 9. 8 12. 0% 2001 36 73 0. 328 883 32. 7% 17. 0% 8. 3% 6. 5 19. 0% 2002 37 46 0. 370 762 31. 4% 14. 7% 6. 0% 8. 8 12. 8% 2003 38 45 0. 341 746 33. 9% 16. 8% 6. 0% 8. 7 13. 5% 2004 39 45 0. 362 680 27. 7% 12. 5% 6. 6% 8. 3 13. 4% 2005 40 5 0. 286 78 36. 1% 14. 1% 6. 4% 8. 4 13. 5% 2006 41 26 0. 270 679 34. 0% 13. 8% 14. 1 8. 2% 2007 42 28 0. 276 628 32. 6% 13. 9% 4. 5% 12. 1 9. 7%

Ryan Howard’s Unique Journey to the Big Leagues By John D. Cappello Albert Pujols: pitch-by-pitch breakdown YEAR %SWUNG %MISS HR/SWING AB/HR HR/CONTACT 2001 42. 4% 21. 0% 3. 1% 15. 9 7. 3% 2002 40. 3% 15. 7% 3. 2% 17. 4 6. 5% 2003 42. 1% 13. 9% 4. 0% 13. 7 8. 1% 2004 42. 1% 12. 7% 4. 3% 12. 9 8. 4% 2005 39. 4% 13. 8% 14. 4 7. 8% 2006 39. 8% 13. 8% 5. 1% 10. 9 10. 0% 2007 36. 7% 11. 0% 3. 1% 17. 7 6. 2% 2008 38. 0% 9. 8% 3. 9% 14. 2 7. 7%