The 2022 Baseball Hall of Fame class was announced Tuesday night. Ryan Howard was not among them, which was expected.
What wasn’t expected was how little love he was given by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America voters in this, his first year on the ballot.
Howard was named on only eight of the nearly 400 ballots cast this year, not enough for the 5% a candidate needs to remain on the ballot the following year.
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I’m not saying Howard is a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer, nor is he close. But he deserved far better.
His career numbers don’t scream out immortality, but there was a prolonged period when he was the most prolific and feared power hitter in the game.
For six consecutive seasons, from 2006 to 2011, Ryan Howard’s at-bats were appointment viewing, whether you were at the yard or watching at home. You stopped what you were doing and you watched. Because you knew there was a
chance something amazing was going to happen, and it often did.
During that six-year run, Howard averaged -- AVERAGED -- 96 runs scored, 44 home runs and 133 RBI. A career year for virtually any player, and Howard averaged those figures for more than half a decade.
MLB
He won the NL MVP in 2006 and finished in the Top 10 in MVP voting in all of those seasons, four times in the Top 5.
For perspective, Here is the list of all the players since 1920 -- when MLB first began recording runs batted in -- who have averaged those numbers over a six-year span:
- Babe Ruth, 1924-1933: 130 runs scored, 45 HR, 136 RBI
- Jimmie Foxx, 1932-1937: 126 runs, 44 HR, 141 RBI
- Sammy Sosa, 1997-2002: 119 runs, 55 HR, 137 RBI
- Howard, 2006-2011: 96 runs, 44 HR, 133 RBI
That’s it. That’s the whole list.
For external reasons, Howard’s big-league career began too late. For physical reasons, his career ended too early. You can argue that six unbelievable seasons doesn’t make a Hall of Fame career. But have you checked Sandy Koufax’s career stats?
Koufax finished his career with four of the most dominant seasons any pitcher has had in the last 100 years. A 97-27 record, and a 1.86 ERA, with three Cy Youngs, a league MVP, and two World Series MVP awards. An absolutely unreal run.
But outside of those four seasons? A 68-60 record in eight seasons, with a 3.71 ERA, pedestrian for his era.
Four seasons was enough to earn Koufax induction in his first year of eligibility, on nearly 87% of ballots.
Koufax’s prime was superior to Howard’s, to be sure. But Howard’s six-year run was so rare, you can count the players who matched it on one hand. That is worthy of more recognition than he received.
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