The Thursday Hypness: Ryan Howard: exposing a players true value every Thursday

I abhor hyperbole.
With that said, I’m going to do my best to avoid it when I gush over Ryan Howard.
Before I dazzle you with some of the raw numbers this 6-foot-4, 250-pound stud has put up in less than two full seasons, let me first get some things out of the way. Howard is not yet as complete a hitter as Albert Pujols. He is not as far ahead of his peers as Johan Santana. He will not be able to help you in as many categories as Alfonso Soriano. And he happens to a play a position that has many similar hitters, unlike Alex Rodriguez.
Yet I would take him with my first pick of the draft, regardless of my draft position.
Granted, this is probably a reach if I’m Nos. 1 or 2, but I also happen to think Howard is that special.
Although he’s 27 years old, he has played in just 266 major league games and registered fewer than 1,000 at-bats.
In that time, he’s managed to club 82 homers, drive in 217 runs, get on base nearly 40 percent of the time and register a .624 slugging percentage. He’s shown enough command of the strike zone to cover up the holes in his swing and has more opposite-field power than any player in the game today.
Some of his detractors (The Jon) will probably point out the fact that Howard hit 24 homers during one 21-game stretch, and that without that run his numbers weren’t nearly as spectacular. Or that he hit just two homers over the final 20 games. They’ll probably also point to his 181 strikeouts and say he’s too free of a swinger to be a truly elite hitter.
I look at those same things and see them as signs that maybe 2006 was not a career year and that it only is a preview of things to come.
Think about it. If Howard can become more consistent, he could avoid streaks like the one at the end of last season. If he can cut down on his strikeouts, he could possibly challenge for a batting title.
Looked at another way, despite Howard’s sudden lack of homers, he still managed to slug .763 and hit .387 during the final month of the season. He also hit more doubles that month than in any other and cut down on his strikeouts.
I don’t see a player who the league figured out, I see a player who figured out what the league was trying to do to him and excelled.
This guy very well could get even better.
When it comes to your fantasy draft, I don’t think I need to convince anyone Howard is worth the gamble. But some might think they could afford to go in another direction and still manage to find someone with a similar skill set.
While that may be true to a degree, don’t allow yourself to think you can get someone such as Travis Hafner, David Ortiz or Manny Ramirez. If you’re picking high enough in the draft for Howard, none of those three guys will be around by the time your next selection rolls around. Be prepared to roll the dice with someone like Adam Dunn or Mark Teixeira, two guys who come with considerable risk in a relative sense.
Howard is still on an upward trajectory, take him anywhere you can get him and don’t look back.

Here is the hype surrounding Ryan Howard. He's young. He hit 58 home runs and posted 149 RBI. He is involved in whether he is a top-five producer in fantasy baseball.
So let's break down this hype. You decide from there.
Ryan Howard is not young. He's 27 and will be 28 in November. Albert Pujols is younger. He was born in January 1980. Howard was born in 1979.
Part of the allure of a young player is that he has the potential to add on to his already remarkable skills. A hitter's peak starts at 27. Howard has one full season under his belt as a player. This era's stand out hitters of Pujols and Vladimir Guerrero started making their marks in their early 20s. Howard made his at 27. This is Howard at his apex. Another hitter who got close to the ever-changing home run record. He will be consistent for years to come.
He will not be a young phenom that gets better and better and builds on his burgeoning talent. Howard has a ceiling and he has hit it. Even if that ceiling is impressive as it is.
His 58 home runs. Great. Combine those with 182 hits and a .313 average, and they are solid. Pujols, Guerrero and Alfonso Soriano are really the only hitters that can post higher hit totals while combining legit power than Howard.
Pujols finished with 177, but was hurt for a full good month. He would have totaled 200 hits and been comparable to power.
Guerrero and Chase Utley were the only players last season to have 200 hits and 30-plus homeruns. And Utley is at the ever-scarce 2nd base spot.
The difference of 18 hits is huge in fantasy baseball. A 200 hitter hardly ever has a prolonged slump. Guerrero's worst month was in June when he had a .243 average. He had 25 hits. It was the only month he was below 30. Howard had two months where he topped 30 hits. August and September. 39 and 36. Homers: 14 and 9. These are numbers. Howard exceeds in some areas and lacks in others.
The RBI are great. There is no argument when there are 149 of them. Neither is his .425 on-base percentage. Those numbers are not a guarantee from season to season. They are situational. A few players such as Pujols, Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz can boast most of those categories every season. They have a track record. Howard has one year ... at age 27.
And let's look at that stretch of 24 homers during one 21-game stretch. The top power options in the game can do that. There would be no surprise if Manny, Purple Lips, Pujols, Ortiz, Soriano, Travis Hafner or Andruw Jones did that. They are the elite power hitters.
Howard did that twice. He hit 13 and 9 homers in a two-month span before the All-Star break and then hit 14 and 9 in August and September. To have two streaks like that is more of an anomaly than standard practice. With Howard's history, I can tell you ... nothing. It was his first full year.
But I will tell you this: There are better all-around players than Howard in Pujols and Soriano. I would take Guerrero over Howard right now because of his track record. Utley and Jose Reyes play at shallower positions, grab more hits, post a better average and in Reyes case, more steals. I would seriously consider Utley over Howard, but not Reyes.
Howard's two streaks were a fluke. Getting a similar streak — Singular not Plural — is not a fluke.
Howard is a great power hitter, but he isn't hands-down better than Ortiz. Ortiz has a better track record. Hafner played 30 fewer games than Howard, hits in a better lineup and had 42 KOs and 117 RBI. And if I wanted to look past the hype and wanted steady stats from a superior hitter, I would go with Manny.
Howard is good. Give me one more season of 55 homers and then we can talk No. 2 overall pick — Pujols is the No. 1 pick for the next three years. Until then Howard will be a top power option. Nothing more.

He’s young. He has no where to go but up. He’s a future Hall of Famer.
Enough with the cliché crap already. We all know Ryan Howard is a freaky baseball talent who mashes the ball like few others. But does that make him a top five fantasy pick? Absolutely not.
In my humble opinion, Howard is second-most over-hyped player heading into the 2007 fantasy season. We all loved the show Howard put on at Home Run Derby, and we thoroughly enjoyed his run at Maris’ legit homerun record. But that does not put him in the top five.
When you’re selecting a player in the top five, you’re looking for a guy who will absolutely kill your opposition in at least three categories, or someone who can post excellent (not just solid) numbers in four or more categories. (For the record: Albert Pujols, Johan Santana, Jose Reyes, Alex Rodriguez and Alfonso Soriano are there.)
Howard is a flat out power hitter. And we love it.
But we must not forget that his talent to hit the long ball may be so frightening that opposing teams may be scared into taking the bat right out of his hand by intentionally walking him. We also must not forget the 180 strikeouts he posted last season, which were second in the National League only to fellow bopper Adam Dunn. And we can’t let his age cloud our judgment on draft day.
First things first, Howard will get the Bonds treatment this year. Period. So you may as well forget those dreams you had of Howard thumping 75 homers, let alone surpassing Maris’ 61. He has no lineup support and pitchers have no reason to put anything over the plate. The result will be a solid player, but hardly someone worth selecting with a top five overall pick.
Think back to 2002, the year after Bonds set the single-season homerun mark. Entering that season, fantasy owners were clamoring over the opportunity to own the Homerun Champ. They figured he’d come close to repeating the numbers and they’d laugh their way to a fantasy title. Instead what owners got was almost 200 walks, 46 homers and a .370 batting average. Those are numbers … if you’re the lizard and you’re job is the manage the San Francisco Giants past the Anaheim Angels in the World Seires.
But in fantasy leagues, it was frustrating to watch the slugger get the free pass after free pass. You drafted the guy to hit homers, not boost your OBP.
As it pertains to Howard, he’ll likely post 40 homers, drive in 120 and score 100+ times, but his average won’t approach that of Bonds’ ’02 number and he may be held to 150 hits or so. Again, excellent baseball stats, but those numbers can be had elsewhere in your draft. With your first pick you could go for a better overall position player (multiple tools) or select a staff ace.
The second factor I think owners need to consider is his strikeout total (181). Granted that he is relatively young and that his whiffs will likely decrease (for one reason or another), owners simply cannot forget about those lost at-bats, or chances.
Follow me here: Hypothetically, the owner who has Howard is only going to get two chances a game for their No. 1 pick to produce. Breakdown: If Howard appears at the plate four times in a game and gets walked twice by pitchers who are scared (or because the situation warrants it), that leaves him with two official at-bats. With his strikeout rate, it’s conceivable that he would punch out once every four official at-bats, further depleting the chances of him making contact and producing the numbers you expect of your No. 1. Essentially you’ve got a glorified pinch hitter.
Now this strikeout stuff (confusing, I know) may seem contradictory because I said Soriano (fourth in the NL in strikeouts) was a top five selection. But Soriano offers much more than just homers. He’s a great all-around fantasy player, although the batting average could be a bit higher, and there’s always that chance he could move back to second base.
And lastly, baseball is in an interesting time. It’s truly become a young man’s game again and fantasy owners are buying into this philosophy. Now I understand that things are different in keeper leagues and age matters, but in a typical annual turnover league it shouldn’t. That is why you should not look at Howard and think, “Gee, he’s 27 years old and entering his 'prime.’”
That’s crap. Fact is the guy is going into his second full Big League season and very few hitters (Albert Pujols, Baby!) have this league figured out by then. He’s going to struggle a bit and you need to understand that. Don’t get sucked into youth hype with Howard. Today’s young ball players all possess multiple tools and one of them is speed. Howard doesn’t have a single stolen base in his entire professional career. He’s a power hitter. And you should know by now that fantasy baseball is not all about power hitters. If it were, Adam Dunn would be a first rounder.