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Don’t get us wrong here at the Bore, Ryan Howard is a great player. He hits 40+ home runs every year and 130+ RBI’s and that is rare in the MLB today. However, he only hits about .270 every year and leads the league yearly or is close to in strikeouts. These past two stats are not characteristic of a 25 million dollar man, instead closer to the Washington Nationals 12 million dollar man named Adam Dunn. Dunn hit 35+ and 100 RBI+ last year in a very friendly pitcher ballpark. He hit .267 and struck out just as much as Howard. While Howards numbers are better, he also plays for a much better team which could inflate his stats. So with Adam Dunn, a similar player to Howard making 12 million, why pay double for Howard?

The Phillies paid 25 million to Howard for one reason, Albert Pujols. In the NL, the Cardinals and Phillies look as if they have separated themselves from everyone else in both the present and the future. If you’ve noticed, since Ryan Howard received his money the topic now has become “Well if Howard got paid 25, how much should Pujols get?” The Phillies have now forced the Cardinals to give Pujols over 30 million if they want to keep him which means the Cardinals probably couldn’t resign their two star pitchers, Wainright and Carpenter. The Phillies are essentially forcing the Cardinals to either split ways with the best hitter in baseball or with 2 of the top 3 pitchers in the NL (Wainright and Carpenter finished 2 and 3 in the CY Young last year). While some have puzzled over why the Phillies have paid so much for Howard, the Bore sees the straight truth. The Phillies are trying to literally dismantle their competition.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 29th, 2010 at 8:56 am and is filed under MLB. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.