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I cannot even believe this is being brought up. I thought Daruzz was kidding when he texted me last night asking what I thought of Howard as an NL MVP candidate. He was not kidding; at that very moment on ESPN was a discussion about the merits of Ryan Howard, NL MVP. I’m going to refute this a couple different ways. I invite you to choose whichever one you like.

Approach 1: The Numbers
HR: 45, 1st
RBI: 136, 1st
Howard leads Adam Dunn by 8 HRs. That type of clearance over 2nd place is certainly impressive but it needs to be pointed out that hitting HRs is the only thing Ryan Howard has really done right this year and he’s doing so in a home park that greatly favors hitters. (Not that he has crazy splits, but it certainly doesn’t hurt.) Howard also leads the NL in RBIs but this is in part because he hits a lot of HRs and in part because he has very good teammates. I realize this means he’s leading two of the triple crown categories but he’s been terrible in the third and there is quite a bit of redundancy in the first two anyway. Basically, Howard is hitting a lot of HRs and not much else.

AVG: .249, 67th of 76 qualifiers
OBP: .335, 52nd of 76
SLG: .537, 9th of 76
This is the core of the argument and really all that needs to be looked at to dismiss him. His slash stats are terrible except for, again, his HRs which carry his SLG. Ranking 52nd in OBP should be unforgivable for a middle of the order 1B. Ryan Howard makes a lot of outs, 3rd most in the National League to be exact. (Of course, last year Rollins was 1st so who knows what voters actually like. Maybe its just PAs.)

VORP: 34th among hitters, 57th overall
EqA: 32nd of 76
Win Shares: 36th
VORP is a nice way to determine overall value and VORP tells us there are 50+ NL players more valuable than Ryan Howard this year. The other stats just show that while Howard hasn’t been a complete waste (again, because of the HRs), he hasn’t been much more than middle of the pack in terms of relative production.

Approach 2: His Teammates
Howard is currently ranked 6th on his own team in VORP (and VORP is a counting stat and Howard is 5 PAs away from leading the team).
Chase Utley, 56.2
Cole Hamels, 52.5
Jimmy Rollins, 42.4
Jamie Moyer, 34.3
Jayson Werth, 32.9
Ryan Howard, 31.6
Lets try this logic out (with the knowledge that VORP is not perfect): Hamels isn’t the leading candidate for Cy Young and he won’t win MVP without winning Cy Young because MVP is higher than Cy Young so he probably isn’t even in the running for MVP yet Howard who is 20 points of VORP behind Hamels is an MVP candidate. Got that? Me neither.

Approach 3: The Adam Dunn Comparison
The old guard that makes up much of the voter base seems to actively hate Adam Dunn. While Howard has slight advantages over Dunn in AVG and SLG, the biggest difference between them, by a good margin, is Dunn’s 53 point edge in OBP. Simply put, 2008 Ryan Howard is Adam Dunn but with about 1/3rd of Dunn’s walks converted into outs.
(And I think we all know that even if Arizona pulls off a miracle and overtakes Los Angeles, Adam Dunn will not be mentioned in the MVP talks unless he hits a HR every other at bat from here on out. Probably not even then; Eckstein will have some gritty infield single in the clinching game, score on Dunn’s 2nd HR (to go along with 3 BBs) and get all the credit.)

Approach 4: The Other Candidates
Alright, let’s start at the bottom and suppose, for some reason, voters will only elect a playoff 1B as MVP. Here are the five candidates:
Fielder: .268/.366/.496, 33.6 VORP
Howard: .249/.335/.537, 31.6 VORP
Delgado: .263/.345/.508, 31.4 VORP
Lee: .295/.363/.466, 30.5 VORP
Loney: .297/.348/.444, 22.0 VORP
You can make a case for any of those five except Loney. Fielder leads in VORP, Howard has the best power numbers at a power position, Delgado is basically an amalgamation of Fielder and Howard and Lee is only 3 points behind Fielder in VORP and has the best glove of the group. Point being, Howard isn’t even the obvious choice among this tiny group of potential lackluster candidates (if he is even the choice here at all).
Alright, let’s now say voters just want to pick the best 1B regardless of team?
Pujols: .357/.461/.645, 89.4 VORP
Berkman: .322/.426/.586, 73.9 VORP
Gonzalez: .279/.361/.510, 41.6 VORP
All are above Howard. (I hate to use the word obviously in what’s supposed to be a factually persuasive article but … obviously, Pujols is the NL MVP. He’s getting on base at a .461 clip and has an OPS over 1.100. His numbers far trump any other player, hitter or pitcher, in either league. It’s not his fault most of his teammates aren’t very good and it’s actually quite amazing that St. Louis has been in contention for much of the season. Most of the credit for that goes to Pujols. Another way to look at it: Put Albert in Philadelphia and Howard in St. Louis and what happens? The Phillies gain like 5 wins. Which means that Pujols is a more valuable player but stuck on a much worse team, no?)
Finally, let’s just use voter logic and decide the MVP simply has to be the best player to make the playoffs. Looking at the same five potential playoff teams as before, there are 25 players ahead of Howard in VORP.
Johan Santana, Jose Reyes, David Wright, Chase Utley, Ben Sheets, Ryan Dempster, Cole Hamels, Chad Billingsley, Carlos Beltran, Carlos Zambrano, C.C. Sabathia, Derek Lowe, Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Braun, Manny Ramirez, Geovany Soto, Mike Pelfrey, Aramis Ramirez, Andre Ethier, J.J. Hardy, Alfonso Soriano, Jamie Moyer, Prince Fielder, Jayson Werth and Mark DeRosa. There are individual arguments to be made for Howard against some of those guys, but not against all 25.

Conclusion
By now we know what most voters will say in Howard’s favor if the Phillies do make the playoffs: “Look at that September!!!” It’s true, he’s been great this month while putting up a .396/.448/1.000 line. Buuuuut … that’s in 58 plate appearances (which makes up less than 10% of his season total). Does a strong final push really make up for mediocrity and sub-mediocrity for the bulk of the season? I don’t understand is why, rather than touting his “clutch” September, commentators aren’t pointing out that had he made less outs from April to August, the Phillies would currently have a bit of a cushion in the East versus running neck and neck with New York. Isn’t this obvious? If I get drunk instead of helping my wife clean the house, throw up all over the carpet when she’s almost finished but then frantically clean the carpet to the point where it looks pretty damn good, should I be commended for my amazing housework? I know that analogy sucks, most of mine do, but I hope the point comes across. September is the first month this season where Howard has been anything resembling the player Philadelphia expects him to be. The rest of the team has basically carried their cleanup hitter all season long and now, because he gets hot for 20 games, he’s an MVP candidate? If Utley and Hamels had only had good rather seasons rather than great and the Phillies were already eliminated, would the analysts not be talking about how Howard’s down year cost them a chance at the playoffs and what he is doing is too little, too late? Mind you, this is without the statistics changing at all. A bad April to August with a great September on a non-playoff team equals scapegoat while a bad April to August with a great September for a playoff team equals MVP. Seriously? Isn’t this really, really, painfully obviously dumb? Anyone?? Joe Morgan???