Real Talk(?): Has Ryan Howard Found His Swing Again?

As his time in Philadelphia winds down, Ryan Howard is currently putting up some serious second half numbers. His 1.193 OPS is second in all of baseball behind Joey Votto. He is averaging a home run every 8 at bats and in fact if he qualified, his AB/HR of 13.5 would be second in the Major Leagues behind Edwin Encarncion. On top of all this, he is sporting a positive WAR (0.9) which would make this stretch of baseball the first time that number has been above 0 since 2013.

Yes, we all know this blog is a useless one. Ryan is overpaid and has become over the years just a genuinely bad baseball player. His bum achilles, slow bat speed and just overall lack of hand-eye coordination has made us question whether or not we should consider renaming the Mendoza line. However, it needs to be noted that after 5 years of tweaking something that used to be so choice, Ryan Howard has once again found his swing.

Here we have Ryan on June 8th. In this particular game vs. The Cubs he went 0-3 with 3 k’s. Just another day in the life. At this point in the season he was hitting. 150 with a .559 OPS. Just awful. But let’s look at his batting stance.

Upright. If I am a veteran pitcher like Lackey who is fully aware of how slow Howard is at this point in his career getting through the zone, I am pounding the fastball on the inner half, which is exactly what Lackey did.

Here We have Ryan Howard in 2014, 2 years removed from a torn achillies, but once again, upright. Far removed from the semi crouch and wider than shoulder length stance since we were so used to seeing from him. Instead, Howard kept the more upright and closed stance while standing closer to the plate while keeping his hands are lower as well. He had been experimenting with this style on and off for a number of years, and the more upright his stance got, the lower his OPS numbers were.

So why this sudden turn around out of nowhere by Howard? The picture on the right is Ryan Howard in Thursday night’s game and the one on the left is peak Howard in 2009, amidst one of the greatest, 4-year offensive stretches of all time.

What took you so long to come back to earth man? That signature croutch was such a staple and an obvious contributor to your consistent and sometimes outrageous, power numbers. Yes, you are a little lower to the ground now, but whatever it is you are doing, keep it up man. This recent string of success is reflective of you going back to your roots. You aren’t missing the grooved fastballs anymore and the mistakes. Now the K% and BB% will always be horrendous, but who cares. Keep hitting the ball out of the ballpark and you may have yourself a few interested suitors for next season. Not in Philly of course, believe me you have done plenty.

PS

Ryan Howard cleared by MLB of PED allegations made in December Al Jazeera report, which caused Howard to sue network https://t.co/kkksOqgrIb

— CSN Philly (@CSNPhilly) August 19, 2016