Howard Misses Pitches and the Point

I guess Adam Eaton being unable to find the world's largest strikezone last night still has me in a bad mood, because I'm about to take things out on Ryan Howard.

From Ryan Howard, via Scott Lauber at The News Journal:

"To me, it's all about seeing the ball and having good at-bats," Howard said. "To everyone else, it's about results. That's how it is in the media and everywhere else. So that's that. People see what they want to see. There's a lot of stuff that you don't see, other stuff that's going on. I try to do what I can to help the team win in whatever ways I can."

 

OK, I believe Ryan is probably being a good teammate and helping out in some small way behnd the scenes.  And I do believe that Ryan is trying the proverbial 110% at the plate, but for him to say we should only judge him on the quality of his at bats... well... that isn't going to make him happy either.

According to Fangraphs.com, Howard swings at 20% of the pitches he sees outside of the strikezone, and when he swings at one within the strikezone, he misses 25% of the time.  In comparison, Pat Burrell only swings at 13% of pitches out of the zone and Chase Utley misses on swings at pitches within the strikezone only 8% of the time.

Now, that is comparing Howard to two of the hottest hitters in all of baseball, but you can't tell me that after watching Howard flail away all spring that he is "seeing the ball" the way he wants us to believe.

Fine Ryan, we'll judge you on quality of at-bats, not results, just be careful, you might get what you asked for.

Comments

[Mike H.]

No argument with your post there, Tom...

Tonight's game was a great baseball game. The infield had a superb game, with the exception of the above mentioned. For all the hemming and hawing about Lidge in spring training, it's all water under the bridge. His slider is just ferocious right now.

[Derek]

Howard's seeing the ball just fine. As it goes past him.