Ryan Howard was last an elite power hitter in 2009, when he launched 45 homers and posted a .279/.360/.571 line at the age of 29. He topped 30 homers in both 2010 and 2011, but his triple slash fell in both seasons. Then, Howard blew out his Achilles to end the 2011 NLDS, and his career has gone completely off the rails.
In the first three seasons of his five year, $125 million extension, Howard has hit a total of 48 homers in 304 games. His walk rate was north of 10% and his strikeout rate was south of 30% just once in those three seasons. His isolated power has continued to fall, bottoming out at .156 in 2014. For comparison’s sake, former teammate Jimmy Rollins had a .151 ISO in 2014.
And now, the club appears to finally be realizing they need to go in another direction. Phillies GM Ruben Amaro said as much in an interview with Mike Missanelli on Friday, as transcribed by Matt Lombardo of NJ.com.
“We’ve talked to Ryan. And I told him that in our situation it would probably bode better for the organization not with him but without him. With that said if he’s with us, then we’ll work around him. We’ll hope he puts up the kind of numbers that we hope he can and we’ll see where it goes from there.”
However, when it comes to simply releasing Howard and eating the remainder of his contract? That’s not happening.
“No ones going to release Ryan Howard. That’s not going to happen. Ryan Howard is too productive and too important a player to just release. You just don’t do that with a player like that. But, we don’t have any designs on doing that.”
While releasing Howard is obviously the least desirable option for Amaro and the Phillies, it might be the most realistic. He’s owed $60 million over the next two years, including a $10 million buyout on a 2017 club option.
[NJ.com]
