Why the Phillies Won’t Miss Ryan Howard as Badly as Fans Think

As a Phillies fan, I constantly hear about how Ryan Howard is the soul of the team, how he is irreplaceable and how the Phillies offense is bound to sputter this year without his presence.  I have also grown tired of trying to explain how, from a sabermetric perspective, Howard simply isn’t that productive offensively.   SABRists are fully aware of what Howard brings to the table: an above average, but in no way spectacular, ability to produce.  In 2011, Howard ranked outside of the top 10  first basemen in wRC+, a measure of a player’s offensive worth relative to the rest of the league.

Howard is indisputably a poor fielder.  Among first baseman who played over 1000 innings last year, only Prince Fielder, Eric Hosmer, and Freddie Freeman had a worse Ultimate Zone Rating.  Though defensive metrics are unreliable on a yearly basis, their unreliability actually portrays Howard as a better fielder than he really is.  In 2010, Howard ranked 2^nd worst in MLB in field, and since both Hosmer and Freeman were rookies without a track record in the Big Leagues, it is impossible to conclusively determine their relative defensive worth.  We all know that Howard is a slow base runner, so I won’t belabor the point.

The point of this is to explain both qualitatively and quantitatively, in terms that the casual baseball fan can understand, why losing Howard for all of 2013 (or beyond) really wouldn’t be that much of a loss.