Sportsfrog.com

Even with Ryan Howard’s recent homerun binge, he’s still hitting just .234 on the season.

After last night’s 2 homerun effort in St Louis, Howard commented on his tough first half:

“Getting off to a slow start, it’s been a grind,” Howard said. “This year’s been a grind. It’s been a learning process for me. The average may not be there right now, but I’m just going out there, trying to do what I can do.”

That same story noted:

In that span, he has hit .353 (18-for-51) with eight home runs and 18 RBIs. His batting average, which bottomed out at .163 on May 7, is up to .234, the highest it has been since he was at .235 on April 5.

But what Howard is failing to realize, it seems, is that this is not a slump that has been limited to the 2008 season. Ryan Howard, quite simply, is not as good as he was when he first came into the league. Either he’s trying to hit too many homeruns, or pitchers have adjusted more than he has, or something else is at work here. But the bottom line is that Howard is turning essentially into another Adam Dunn.

In Howard’s first full MLB season, 2006, Howard hit .313. His strikeouts to walks ratio was better than 2:1 (1.68, actually), his strike out to at bats ratio was just lower than his batting average (.312, actually), and his singles to extra base hits ratio was over 1 (1.17, actually).

Then in 2007, Howard stuck out way more than he hit (BA: .268, K/AB: .376), and his K/BB ratio was much closer to 2:1 (1.86 - yes, higher is worse here). He even hit less singles than extra base hits (.945).

So now this season, through 93 games and 351 at bats, Howards numbers are still down.
BA: .234, K/AB: .356, K/BB: 2.66, 1B/EBH: (1.00)

So here’s how it breaks down.

In contrast, here are Dunn’s numbers over the last five years.

Howard is still better, and Dunn isn’t bad either.

But I think the debate on whether people expected more from Dunn is pretty unanimous. And I worry Howard is falling into that same category.

Either way, it’s impossible to argue against the fact that his strikeouts have been too frequent over the last season and a half, and this year he isn’t walking as much.