Howard & Michael Jack

The earlier piece, The Defense Rests, put Ryan Howard’s stats up against the top 10 all-time in Home Runs and RBIs, as well as some contemporaries.

Today, we add to that and look at Ryan Howard’s first 7 years as a regular starter compared against Hall of Famer and Phillies legend, Michael Jack Schmidt.  At times, the fans back in the day gave Schmidt a hard time even though he is arguably the greatest Third Baseman ever.  The fans have since embraced Schmidt.  Perhaps, some Phillies fans can learn from the mistakes of the past so that they may enjoy and appreciate the numbers that Ryan Howard puts up while they actually are happening, instead of a decade after the fact.

Howard’s defensive prowess isn’t in the same stratosphere as Schmidt’s.  Few are.  I think every kid in Philadelphia tried to imitate Schmidt’s bare-handed plays.  But, Howard’s Run Producing skills measure up quite nicely with Michael Jack, actually exceeding them in most categories–yes, even strikeouts.

Hopefully, these numbers combined with the numbers in The Defense Rests will convince my buddy’s eighty-nine year old grandmother that Ryan Howard isn’t really a bum.  As much as I love hearing his impersonation of a cranky older lady saying That Howard’s a bum!, Howard kind of deserve slightly more respect than the bum moniker.

Mike Schmidt’s 1^st 7 years as regular starter, according to baseball-reference.com. (league leading numbers are in bold, except for totals at bottom)

Ryan Howard 1^st years as regular starter, according to baseball-reference.com. (league leading numbers are in bold, except for totals at bottom)