Categories: Posts

FJM: Howard Is A Beast, Let’s Not Ditch Him, Kay?

Fire Joe Morgan (one of the absolute best blogs in the world) skewers Gerry Fraley of the Sporting News and his column about the Phillies keeping put with paying Ryan Howard past his arbitration years.

Fraley says Howard is fast becoming a Dave Kingman-type player:

“Howard was hitting only .209 with a sickly .785 on-base plus slugging percentage and was on pace for a ridiculous 225 strikeouts, 26 more than his record-setting total of last season.”

FJM:

“BABIP. See above. (career .341 batting average of balls in play) And wow, those strikeouts absolutely killed him last year to the tune of a .392 OBP and the third most home runs in major league baseball.

Ryan Howard is a human-shaped anchor who will drag your team all the way to the bottom of the standings. He has never won a baseball game and never will, until he moves to China, where the fewest runs scored wins the game and the women have sideways vaginas and vertical smiles.”

FJM is right â€” Howard will improve beyond his current numbers and probably put up another very good season. Fraley should’ve turned his argument more toward the logistical long-term reasons why Howard may not be the best keep for the Phillies, as I wrote

back in April.

Instead, he had to face the deadly slings of the FJM crew

Tim Malcolm

Tim first found the Phillies as a little infant at Veteran’s Stadium, cheering on a Juan Samuel game-winning home run in his very first game. With the pinstripes in his blood, he witnessed Terry Mulholland’s 1990 no-hitter, “Steve Carlton Night” at the Vet, game three of the 1993 World Series, countless games during the charmed 2008 championship season and various road excursions. Since November 2007 Tim’s been writing about them daily at Phillies Nation, becoming one of the world’s most popular Phillies scribes. You can catch him on Twitter and Facebook, as well. When he’s not talking about the Phils he’s relaxing with a St. Bernardus ABT 12 or one of his many favored brews.