Howard’s decline is in free fall mode

Howard hasn’t had to worry about being the post-game interview this season

“Hopefully there’s no riots taking place back in Philly.”




That is the sentence that Ryan Howard uttered after the April 26th 2010 contract extension that would pay Ryan Howard $125M for his services through 2017. Almost to the day since signing that contract, Howard hasn’t been the same player that we’ve seen as the Phillies rose into one of their best ever runs in the history of the team.


A lot of the good things that went into the Phillies making the decision to keep Howard essentially for the rest of his career, are now just a distant memory. Howard would start to get hot as the summer started to take shape. So far, that hasn’t happened this year with Ryan Howard or in previous years, and it’s really been a disappointing year all around from him.


Is Ryan Howard done as a baseball player? No, he’s not done, but something has happened to this slugger and you can see it right on his face when he swings lazily at some change-ups and just returns to the bench. He’s now in a 0-20 slump, and just appears that he’s lost his zest for the game sometimes.


Howard appeared to be destined towards greatness, but that path has been detoured now, as what we’ve been seeing lately may be the start of a long time of ‘hard times’ not only for Ryan Howard as a player, but the Phillies in general. Howard is the guy the Phillies expect to be trailblazing the Phillies to greatness, and so far he has led them into a deep muddy mire.

Year Age Tm Lg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI
2004 24 PHI NL 19 39 5 11 5 0 2 5
2005 25 PHI NL 88 312 52 90 17 2 22 63
2006 26 PHI NL 159 581 104 182 25 1 58 149
2007 27 PHI NL 144 529 94 142 26 0 47 136
2008 28 PHI NL 162 610 105 153 26 4 48 146
2009 29 PHI NL 160 616 105 172 37 4 45 141
2010 30 PHI NL 143 550 87 152 23 5 31 108
2011 31 PHI NL 152 557 81 141 30 1 33 116
2012 32 PHI NL 71 260 28 57 11 0 14 56
2013 33 PHI NL 76 273 31 72 20 2 10 41
10 Yrs 1174 4327 692 1172 220 19 310 961
162 Game Avg. 162 597 95 162 30 3 43 133
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 7/2/2013.
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