Given the choice of the two, would you rather commit $75-100 million, long-term to Ryan Howard or Matt Holliday?
Cimorelli’s Question of the Day
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You take howard. OPS for Howard is over 900 for the last 4 years. His BB is also consistantly higher than Holliday, but he struck out 199 times the last two years. This is not a surprise considering he swings for the fences. But he clearly gets on base more, the more which is how you score games. He needs to be careful though. His OBP has dropped off this year as have the number of times he has walked. This could possibly be that teams have figured out how to pitch to him so they aren’t pitching around him anymore. He has to remain patient, stop swinging at the breaking ball after they throw two fastballs. His lack of discipline could kill his production.
Well, Holliday gets on-base more, because he hits for a way higher average. His OBP was over .400 even in road games in ’08. Howard’s OBP was about .340. Holliday
also stole 28 bases in ’08, and was thrown out twice. All that being said, I still think I’d rather give the money to Howard. I just think his unbelievable power
makes such a difference, and I don’t know that Holliday’s power numbers, once he’s out of Coors, will be anywhere near Howard’s. Also, I just really like Howard.
Might have something to do with the fact that he just won us a title.
As for the Holliday trade rumors, I think if you can give something like Happ and Golson, you probably do it. If they want Carrasco or Marson, or Victorino or Werth,
I don’t think I’m interested.
I would show Howard the cash…he just helped us win a championship and did so with strike out numbers like Jaoquin Phoenix’s character in Signs. He needs to do two things to improve those numbers: 1) show some patience at the plate with breaking pitches and 2) hit the ball to the opposite field. With Charlie Manuel (hitting coach “lifer”) working with him, just imagine the upside of his potential OBP and power numbers. Did I mention the world championship?