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Ryan Howard: Gold Glove? Over the last week I’ve become very impressed by the defensive turnaround of the big man, Ryan Howard. RH used to be the butt of many jokes and his name would be thrown around with other big men who had rocks for hands. So I decided to take a look at his fielding statistics so far in 2009, and wouldn’t you know it, Ryan Howard has been the best fielding 1st baseman in the National League. The Fielding Metric UZR, or Ultimate Zone Ratings, is a composite of how many runs the range, arm, and error of a player is worth. UZR/150 is what would be expected over 150 games, and what we’ll use to look at what would be expected by the end of the season. In 2008 any guesses on the best fielder in all of baseball? Hint: His name rhymes with Base Mutley. Thats right, ChUt led the league with a UZR score of 21.4. 2009’s 1st base class is surprisingly not led by Albert Pujols on the field…at least not so far. The Rangers Chris Davis leads the league with UZR/150’s of 24.0. If this kid could turn in an OBP over .350, he is going to be a stud. Anyway, leading the National League in everyday 1st baseman is Howard, with a 11.3. What that means is Howard’s defense will be worth 11.3 runs to the Phils, or just over 1 win. To be fair to Ryan, his defense was never actually that poor, but merely average ranging from 0 (replacement player) to his highest mark of a UZR/150 of 2.4 last year. What’s impressive is that Howard has already provided as much value with his glove in 29 games this year, that he did in 159 games last year. If he can keep this up, maybe I’ll look past some of those awful strike outs he will have on occasion. Now this is only over 1/6 of the season so numbers can regress. Hell, Utley so far has a UZR/150 of -2.1. Considering he has scores of 21.4, 21, 10.2, 17.1, and 14.9 over the last 5 seasons, I’ll bet he ends up over 10 runs. Anyway, give the big man credit. He has worked hard over the last 2 off seasons to get better at playing his position and it could pay off big dividends for the Phils.

Ryan Howard: Gold Glove?

Over the last week I’ve become very impressed by the defensive turnaround of the big man, Ryan Howard. RH used to be the butt of many jokes and his name would be thrown around with other big men who had rocks for hands. So I decided to take a look at his fielding statistics so far in 2009, and wouldn’t you know it, Ryan Howard has been the best fielding 1st baseman in the National League.

The Fielding Metric UZR, or Ultimate Zone Ratings, is a composite of how many runs the range, arm, and error of a player is worth. UZR/150 is what would be expected over 150 games, and what we’ll use to look at what would be expected by the end of the season.

In 2008 any guesses on the best fielder in all of baseball? Hint: His name rhymes with Base Mutley. Thats right, ChUt led the league with a UZR score of 21.4.

2009’s 1st base class is surprisingly not led by Albert Pujols on the field…at least not so far. The Rangers Chris Davis leads the league with UZR/150’s of 24.0. If this kid could turn in an OBP over .350, he is going to be a stud. Anyway, leading the National League in everyday 1st baseman is Howard, with a 11.3. What that means is Howard’s defense will be worth 11.3 runs to the Phils, or just over 1 win.

To be fair to Ryan, his defense was never actually that poor, but merely average ranging from 0 (replacement player) to his highest mark of a UZR/150 of 2.4 last year. What’s impressive is that Howard has already provided as much value with his glove in 29 games this year, that he did in 159 games last year. If he can keep this up, maybe I’ll look past some of those awful strike outs he will have on occasion.

Now this is only over 1/6 of the season so numbers can regress. Hell, Utley so far has a UZR/150 of -2.1. Considering he has scores of 21.4, 21, 10.2, 17.1, and 14.9 over the last 5 seasons, I’ll bet he ends up over 10 runs.

Anyway, give the big man credit. He has worked hard over the last 2 off seasons to get better at playing his position and it could pay off big dividends for the Phils.


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