What, me worry? About Ryan Howard?

I picked up something interesting on the Baseball-Reference Blog the other day. But before we get into that, we must point out that Baseball-Reference.com just might be the greatest web site ever invented. For baseball geeks (like me), it’s an unending source of amusement and entertainment. The truth is the little site that grew into a fulltime job for former St. Joe’s professor Sean Forman, is exactly what the web should be. It is perfect, and better yet, it keeps guys like me from lugging around silly things like media guides or the Baseball Encyclopedia from city to city and ballpark to ballpark.

So for that, thank you Dr. Forman.

But really… actual media guides in a digital world?

Anyway, the thing I picked up on the blog carried the headline, “What worries me about Ryan Howard.” That’s a pretty catchy headline considering the Phillies’ offensive success hinges largely on Howard’s ability to hit home runs.

Actually, the Phillies’ success is all about the home run. If they don’t homer, they have trouble scoring runs. For instance, 25 of the team’s last 36 runs have come on home runs. That’s a whopping 69.4 percent. Moreover, this season the Phillies lead the Majors in runs from homers with more than 46 percent of their runs coming from homers.

Nevertheless, the Howard entry came with two graphs of stats showing the worst OPS+ values for 45 HR seasons in big league history, and the lowest OPS values for hitters with more than 30 bombs this season. In both Howard ranked third.

Check ‘em out...

Now here’s the thing… how can averaging 50 homers per 162 games throughout his career be worrisome? Sure, Howard strikes out a lot and his walk totals have dipped this season, which has more to do with the fact that he no longer has Pat Burrell hitting behind him in the batting order.

As Howard himself might say, “It is what it is.” The Big Piece hits home runs at the expense of a lot of things, but he’s hardly the current version of Dave Kingman. Saying it’s worrisome that a guy slugging more than 45 homers a season and owning three of the franchise’s top four home-run producing seasons is kind of silly. It doesn’t really explain the type of player Howard is – or has become.

The guy actually fields his position now, and may finally be learning to use the entire field when making contact which could render those dreaded shifts as useful as an actual media guide.

This isn’t to say Howard is the most complete player on the team – far from it. But there isn’t a real reason to be “worried” about Howard yet. In fact, saying there’s worry over a guy who has blasted 214 home runs in 698 games (with 610 RBIs) is kind of like eating ice cream and complaining that there weren’t enough red sprinkles on it.

Even if the green, yellow and blue clearly outnumbered the red ones, it’s hardly a rip off.

No, the time to get worried about Howard is when he stops hitting 45-plus homers a season. Because when he stops doing that, he becomes the current-day Steve Balboni and (nothing against Balboni) no one wants to see that.

But really… what’s with the Phillies and homers? Here’s a little stat from the 2008 post-season – the Phillies scored 64 runs against Milwaukee, Los Angeles and Tampa Bay to win the World Series and of those runs 32 came on homers.

It breaks down like this:

14 of 24 in the World Series 8 of 25 in the NLCS 10 of 15 in the NLDS

Feast or famine, huh?

Marson goes the distance

Baseball can be pretty darned fun sometimes. Forget about the party following clinching victories and all of that kind of stuff, sometimes it's just fun to watch a game. Take Game 162 for instance. With the NL East already wrapped up and nothing to play for other than some statistics, manager Charlie Manuel filled Sunday's lineup with September call ups. Because of that, Greg Golson, Mike Cervenak and Lou Marson have proper Baseball-Reference pages.

That's certainly no small feat. In fact, the underlying theme of the movie "Field of Dreams" was all about a ballplayer named Moonlight Graham and his not-so spotty entry in the encyclopedia. Graham, as made famous in the film, played just one inning of one game in right field for the New York Giants in 1905. He didn't get a chance to bat, nor did he make a play in the field. When the game ended, Graham never again played in the Majors so his record consists of one little notch under the games heading and that's it.

As a result, Graham has the most rudimentary and mysterious professional record in the books.

Contrarily, if Lou Marson never gets a shot to play in the big leagues again his ledger will look pretty full. Now this isn't to say that Marson will never again play in the Majors - quite the opposite. Clearly Marson should be tabbed as the Phillies' catcher of the future after a summer in which he stood out at Double-A Reading and was an integral player for Team USA in the Beijing Olympics.

"He's going to be a good big-league player," Manuel said.

Obviously, the Phillies like Marson very much though he likely seems to be slated to spend most of 2009 seasoning himself at Triple-A Lehigh Valley.

Nevertheless, in his first (and only) Major League game, Marson batted eighth as the starting catcher against the Washington Nationals on Sunday. Better yet, he caught all nine innings, picked up his first hit and - oh yeah - clubbed a two-run homer in the eighth inning to help the Phillies put the game out of reach.

So if you go to that Lou Marson Baseball-Reference page, it looks pretty gaudy with the career .500 batting average and 1.720 OPS. Better yet, he averages out to 162 homers and 324 RBIs for a full season.

See, told you it was fun.

"He has a chance to be very good. He hits the ball a lot to right field, but today he pulled his home run to left," Manuel said. "It's just a matter of time until he learns to really handle pitches and hit the ball out front more. He's got a chance to be a real good hitter."

Marson was pretty good for Reading where he hit .314 with five homers in 94 games. For Team USA, he hit .308 in five games during the Olympics and even threw out two of three would-be base stealers. However, when Marson joined the Phillies in early September, he didn't do much more than take batting practice before the games. He also had a pretty good spot to watch from the dugout, serving as an emergency catcher in case of an injury to Chris Coste or Carlos Ruiz. Marson will reprise that role during the playoffs when he heads off to the Arizona Fall League to be ready if the Phillies need to add him to the playoff roster.

In the meantime, after nearly a month of hanging around the team Marson finally got a chance to play. Needless to say, he made the most of it.

"It was great for me to be around the guys and see how they go about their business in a pennant race and what they do every day and how they prepare - everything  like that," Marson said. "Just watching guys play helps me a lot."

Perhaps he picked up the home run swing from watching Ryan Howard?

"I never imagined I'd hit a home run my first time," Marson said.

Though he homered in his first game, Marson singled for his first hit. That is unlike Chase Utley who hit a grand slam for his first big-league hit.

"I was excited when I came in today and saw my name up on that board," Marson said. "I just wanted to make the most of it."

*** It's been pointed out in other places, but how much fun is it that the White Sox are hoping to save their playoff chances by sending Gavin Floyd to the mound against the Tigers' Freddy Garcia?

On another note, Garcia (1) and Floyd (16) have combined for 17 wins this season. That's more than twice as many as the pair combined for in 35 career starts for the Phillies.