With Ryan Howard signing a five-year, $125 million contract extension this week, speculation has turned to Albert Pujols.
Because if Howard is worth $25 million a year, what is Pujols worth? How much should a team pay for a three-time MVP?
The St. Louis Cardinals have Pujols under contract through this season, plus a club option at $16 million for 2011.
Pujols vs. Howard
Albert Pujols and Ryan Howard are two of the best sluggers in baseball. Here is how their statistics compare since the beginning of the 2006 season, prorated to 162 games played:
Pujols Howard
587 AB 609
120 R 106
196 H 169
42 2B 30
2 3B 3
44 HR 51
129 RBI 148
11 SB 3
4 CS 1
107 BB 95
63 K 197
.334 AVG .278
.438 OBP .376
.632 SLG .584
176 OPS+ 143
162 RC 139
423 Outs 458
10.3 RC/27 8.1
.791 OWP .709
NOTE: OPS+ takes a player’s on-base and slugging and normalizes it to his home park and the league average; RC is Runs Created; OWP is Offensive Winning Percentage.
Hanging on to Pujols next year for $16 million would appear to be a no-brainer, at least according to Atlanta Braves manager Bobby Cox. The veteran skipper said Pujols is twice as good as any other player in baseball, which would make him worth more than $50 million a year.
Hyperbole aside, how valuable is Howard and, by comparison, how valuable is Pujols?
Those are questions that open a philosophical debate. By definition, Pujols is worth $16 million this year, because that’s what his club is paying him.
So the question should be: Could that money be better spent elsewhere? Three years ago, when the Mariners signed Ichiro to a five-year extension averaging $18 million a year, I argued they would be better off signing two $9 million players.
The same could be said for the Phillies and the $25 million they will be paying Howard each season until he’s 37. Howard has old-player skills, with prodigious power but little speed and an extremely high strikeout rate. As good as he is, the odds of him remaining a great player by 2017 are slim.
And while Howard has finished first, fifth, second, and third in National League MVP voting the past four years, he’s not the Phillies’ best player; Chase Utley is. Howard’s Win Shares for the past four years are 29, 26, 24, 26; Utley’s are 27, 28, 30, 32.
Philadelphia wisely has Utley locked up through the 2013 season at about $12 million a year, which makes him a bargain on the Ryan Howard Salary Scale.
But let’s get back to Howard and Pujols, comparing them since the start of the 2006 season, when Howard became a full-time player.
Nobody would argue that Howard is superior to Pujols, but they are two of the most prolific hitters in the game, and this will give us an opportunity to explore some sophisticated methods of evaluation.
• In the past five seasons, Howard has averaged 51 homers and 148 RBI for every 162 games played. Pujols has averaged 44 homers and 129 RBI.
Howard is a great slugger, but the media’s infatuation with him in the MVP vote has been disconcerting. Throughout history, voters have been unduly seduced by RBI totals, to the point of being irrational.
Consider: Howard has batted with 2,065 runners on base the past five seasons; Pujols has batted with 1,839 runners in front of him. That’s a big part of the reason Howard drives in more runs.
Then there is Win Probability Added, which measures a hitter’s ability and the importance of the situation in which he delivers. The past five years, Pujols’ WPA is 29.3, and Howard’s is 21.1.
Howard drives in more runs, but there’s no evidence to suggest he is Pujols’ equal as a “clutch” hitter.
• Because his batting average is 56 points higher and he walks more frequently, Pujols reaches base 310 times per 162 games, compared with 270 times for Howard. Those 40 extra times on base add up to a lot of runs.
Looking ahead
Ryan Howard turned 30 last November and is signed through 2017, but history suggests he won’t age well. Of the most similar players to Howard through the age of 29, according to baseball-reference.com, only Willie McCovey is in the Hall of Fame:
- Richie Sexson
- Cecil Fielder
- Mo Vaughn
- Willie McCovey
- David Ortiz
- Tony Clark
- Mark McGwire
- Carlos Delgado
- Fred McGriff
- Norm Cash
In addition, because he reaches base more often, Pujols uses fewer outs. Per 162 games, Pujols uses up 421 outs, while Howard uses 459. The entire context of baseball is built around outs, which is why these numbers are important.
The end result is that Pujols creates 10.3 runs per 27 outs, while Howard creates 8.1. A team of nine Albert Pujols would score more than 10 runs a game.
• Other metrics for evaluating hitters yield similar results. Over the past five years, Pujols’ VORP is 370.8, indicating his value over a mythical replacement player, in terms of runs generated. Howard’s VORP is 224.1.
• Pujols is a great fielder for a first baseman; Howard is average. But we’re going to remove this from the discussion because the difference between an outstanding first baseman and even a poor one is only a handful of runs per season. Defense simply doesn’t matter very much when evaluating major league first basemen.
Overall, the math tells us that Pujols produces about three more wins per year than Howard does.
None of this is meant to be a knock on Howard. From 2006-09, he averaged 49.5 homers and 143 RBI. That’s a whole lot of production.
In addition, he comes across as engaging and intelligent in interviews, and that can’t be a bad thing.
But the question is whether or not Howard is a wise investment at $25 million a year. Given his old-player skills, his relative lack of ability to get on base, and his clear inferiority to somebody who plays the same position in the same league, it would seem that money could be better spent elsewhere.
