Chris Volstad leaves Marlins; Ryan Howard saddened
In a January of emptiness, this constitutes news in Phillies land: Chris Volstad is no longer a member of the National League East.
Chris Volstad leaves Marlins; Ryan Howard saddened
Matt Gelb, Inquirer Staff Writer
Ryan Howard has hit more homers off Chris Volstad than any other pitcher. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
In a January of emptiness, this constitutes news in Phillies land: Chris Volstad is no longer a member of the National League East.
The Miami Marlins continued their overhaul into baseball's top circus by acquiring Carlos Zambrano in a trade with Chicago. The NL East should be quite fun once Ozzie Guillen and Logan Morrison engage in a Twitter battle, Jose Reyes and Hanley Ramirez both play shortstop, and Zambrano bashes the backstop aquarium in the new ballpark.
Anyway, back to Volstad: His departure marks a sad day for Ryan Howard, who probably could use some good days. If you've watched any Phillies-Marlins games in the past half decade, you might have seen Howard teeing off Volstad.
They've faced one another only 31 times, but Howard has eight home runs against Volstad, the most vs. any one pitcher.
Here's Howard's top 10 victims:
| PA | AB | H | 2B | 3B | HR ▾ | RBI | BB | SO | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chris Volstad | 31 | 26 | 13 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 13 | 5 | 5 | .500 | .581 | 1.462 | 2.042 |
| Tim Hudson | 63 | 52 | 17 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 14 | 10 | 8 | .327 | .429 | .712 | 1.140 |
| Livan Hernandez | 44 | 37 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 8 | 6 | 10 | .297 | .386 | .622 | 1.008 |
| Javier Vazquez | 27 | 21 | 8 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 8 | 5 | 4 | .381 | .481 | 1.048 | 1.529 |
| Johan Santana | 27 | 25 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 7 | 2 | 5 | .320 | .370 | .800 | 1.170 |
| Mike Pelfrey | 51 | 43 | 16 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 7 | 7 | 4 | .372 | .471 | .628 | 1.098 |
| John Lannan | 43 | 37 | 9 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 8 | 3 | 13 | .243 | .349 | .541 | .889 |
| Ricky Nolasco | 38 | 30 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 8 | 8 | .200 | .368 | .567 | .935 |
| Josh Johnson | 36 | 33 | 10 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 8 | 2 | 7 | .303 | .333 | .636 | .970 |
| Tim Lincecum | 35 | 32 | 7 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 16 | .219 | .286 | .594 | .879 |
| Dave Bush | 30 | 27 | 10 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 3 | .370 | .433 | .852 | 1.285 |
| Brian Moehler | 27 | 24 | 11 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 8 | 2 | 5 | .458 | .519 | .958 | 1.477 |
| Aaron Harang | 25 | 21 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 5 | .286 | .400 | .762 | 1.162 |
| Kyle Lohse | 23 | 18 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 11 | 5 | 5 | .500 | .609 | 1.000 | 1.609 |
| Chuck James | 21 | 18 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 7 | 2 | 7 | .167 | .238 | .667 | .905 |
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Sure enough, Zambrano has solid numbers against Howard in his career, limiting the slugger to a .222/.333/.278 slash line in 21 plate appearances. We're pretty sure this is not why the Marlins made the trade.
And so long as a healthy Howard is on the field come June 29, when the Phillies make their first trip to Miami, the Phillies won't care who he's facing.
***
Two more in-house non-roster invitees for spring training to report, via MLB.com: Righthanders Austin Hyatt and B.J. Rosenberg.
We like Hyatt as a possible innings-eater down the line. For now, he's at least rotation depth and could be at the top of the triple-A Lehigh Valley rotation in 2012. His strikeout rate has dipped as he's moved up the ladder, but it still remained at 10.0 per nine innings in 28 double-A starts. He turns 26 in May.
Rosenberg is also an older guy (26) who has yet to taste triple A. He's been injured, bounced between the rotation and bullpen, and showcased in Arizona Fall League play. He has yet to show prolonged effectiveness, but there are those in the Phillies organization who like his arm. So he'll be with the big kids come February.
***
Ryan Madson is still unsigned, but here's betting he won't end up as big a loser in free agency as some think.
Have a question? Send it to Matt Gelb's Mailbag.
Comments (46)
Just curious as to how John Lannan and Tim Lincecum, can be victims of Howard? Looks to be the other way around to me looking at Batting Average and strikeouts. .243/13k and .219/16k, doesnt sound like they are victims if you ask me.— JAG27- His OPS against Lincecum is .879. The rest of the league's OPS against Lincecum is .630. If Howard hit for a season against every pitcher the way he has hit Lincecum, he would end up with somewhere around 56 homers and 56 doubles. That makes you an all star even if you are only batting .219.
— phillyl0 - And haven't the haters always said Howard gets all of home runs off bad pitchers? On that list of 15 pitchers, there are 19 all star appearances, 13 top-five finishes in Cy Young voting and four Cy Youngs. — phillyl0
- While what you say about him versuses the rest of the league is a nice stat, it makes sense, and would be nice to see, the fact is he hasnt don't jack squat in the playoff's since before the 2009 World Series against the Yankees. Before that he was rolling along pretty nicely, since then he has been mediocore at best, espcially for what he is getting paid. — JAG27
- I realize you are a fanatic, which implies irrationality, but c'mon, numbers don't lie. Ryan Howard has 286 career HRs. I'm counting about 20 there against top pitchers, who should be the guys you see regularly, year-in, year-out. That leaves 266 either against various journeymen or cup of coffee- AAAA- talent, or middle relievers. Which is a lot closer to supporting "Howard gets all of his home runs off bad pitchers" than the drivel you are referring to. Then, if you look inside the numbers, Howard hit 1 HR off of Lincecum since 2008 and 1 HR off of Josh Johnson since 2008. Clearly, it takes good pitchers a couple games to figure out Howard, but after that, they pretty much have his number. Even look at Hudson. Howard tagged him for 3 in a game in 2006 when Hudson was bad (4.86 ERA) and twice more in a game when Hudson was injured (42 IP the whole season). Other than that, when Hudson is pitching well? 1 HR. — jtj06
- Ryan Howard should be platooned since he can't hit lefthanders. Why doesn't any of these "hometown" writers have the guts to say it?— farley
- Chris Volstad was becoming common vocabulary for the mound version of Izell (toast) when facing Ryan...RH will have to pick out some more new victims trying to sneak fastballs by him... but this fan would love him to continue to work on picking up the rotation of the ball against the lefties, so the name Mario (Mendoza) can never be mentioned.— bearsfriend
- Another Howard victim is no longer with the Marlins, FA Javier Vazquez. At least for now. He said he was retiring. But he finished very strong the second half of the season winning his last 5 decisions with 2 SH and a 0.71 ERA. Maybe he could be having second thoughts, which could make them more dangerous.— EL Zorro
- It's crazy when you realize that Zambrano is only 30...The Marlins are only paying 3 mil, with the Cubs picking up the rest!(guess that tells us HOW psycho he really must be)..Hope he takes batting practice at CBP with ...Stanton,Morrison,Buck,Hanley...that's alot of souvenirs. — bearsfriend
- The pictures of the new stadium for the Miami Marlins is beautiful...But with the grouping of Ozzie Guillen with the likes of Hanley,Reyes,Zambrano... (with Morrison telling the world about it), maybe they should have pitched a tent over that circus.— bearsfriend
- Any pitcher worth their weight in salt can throw Howard 4 pitches. 2 off speed pitches down and away, one curve or slider tight inside, and a high fastball.
They sucessfully do that, Howard has a BA of 0.000 and sets a new record for strikeouts in a season with 550 (his total number of at bats).— Bruno Sammartino - Fortunately, dim-witted, good-for-nothing palookas like Tim Hudson, Johann Santana and Tim Lincecum can't crack the Howard code the way have, Bruno. Also, even if we were willing to play your stupid game, wouldn't we need to count Howard's plate appearances instead of his at bats? — phillyl0
- Poor Cholly Manuel. The Marlins will be calling him all kinds of names in spanish next season and he'll just smile.— Wilhelm Von Humboldt
- Excellent posts here guys! All winners.....ah, Volstad...just one more 3rd rate pitcher that RH won't have available to tee off of anymore.....the best player I have ever seen at padding hisnstats...."Howard the K".— Mark1npt
Comment removed.- Ryan will still see Volstad when they play the cubs, just not as often.— mikemaddog
- The built in excuse for this year of course is the ankle injury on Howard. I've got Howard pegged on my list of recent failed Philly sports stars including Andy Reid, Donovan McNabb, Allen Iverson. When the chips were down, you knew deep down that these particular people weren't coming through for your team and that you were going home with broken dreams and a lot of what its..... For those thinking to do so, spare the argument of regular season stats with RH....the only thing that counts is playoff performance and we know his performance in that area only all so well....— DelawareRiverRat
- there goes another 3 hrs off his total for this year (might not even hit 30) and another 4 points off his b.a. (might not reach .250) --- only another $125 mil. and 6 more years before Phils can think about getting a legitimate cleanup hitter .. how do ya think Singleton will be doing in the meantime --another one of the dumb rube's big July giveaways— warbiscuit
- i thought he feasted on chris carpenter more than any other pitcher.— jb99
- bearsfriend: You couldn't be more right. I suspect it will take about two months for the sparks to start flying in S. Florida, with that gaudily uniformed team in full technicolor implosion by July/August.— Dave Clemens
- um...did Matt overlook or forget that the Phillies are OPENING the new Marlins ballpark on April 9th. I know Howard probably won't be playing yet....but that's actually their FIRST trip to Miami.— kevin31
- You need to platoon Utley too, guy is breaking down fast and cannot touch left handed pitching anymore too.
- one man this singularly knowledgeable fan (to the exclusion of all you ignorant naive lackeys) dislikes more than Reid is the clueless Ruben Amaro who has won as many championships as Reid (zero), albeit with so many more advantages to work with, to wit, a bigger budget than anyone else in the league (as opposed to the nfl where all teams are on equal financial footing) and, when, he began in 2008, the core of a championship team and one of the best farm systems in baseball... ah, but he's gone out and got terrific players like Lee and Halladay so what has he done wrong, you ask? ... ah --that's easy to any half-intelligent baseball person: he puts all his budget into a few players (including lot of completely wasted salary like Howard, Blanton, Ibanez, Polanco, etc) and ignores depth and balance and bench and bullpen and consistently fills the remainder of the roster with literally garbage (Bruntlett, Schneider, Baez, Gload, Herndon, Nix, Willis, to name a few who he's obtained who are literally not even legitimate major leaguers), when for 3 yrs, had he just when out and made some adequate acquisitions, a championship could have been in reach, and to add insult to injury he has destroyed the franchise's future in the proces by losing about a dozen legitimate prospects in his panic July moves— warbiscuit
- JAG27 - Howard's output off Lannan & Lincecum (look at RBIs and approximate outs made by AB-H) amounts to about 6 runs a game, far higher than either of their ERAs. Howard's doing all right there.
farley - Platooned with who? They haven't had good righthanded hitters off the bench the last few years.
Bruno - If it was that easy, it would have already happened.
Mark1npt - as you can see from above, the posts aren't that great.— Bobby G - Lot of unfair Howard bashing here but DelawareRiverRate takes the prize! Sure, comparing Howard to McNabb, Iverson and Reid is fair. Except that Howard is a class act who gives back to Philly. And Howard's won both NL Rookie of the Year and MVP. (He finished 2nd and 3rd in the MVP voting two other times.) And, Howard batted cleanup and led his team to the 2008 World Championship. Other than those tiny exceptions, great analogy. Dufus.— eman
- Howard to miss April and May, NL Lefties disgusted!— younged
- Bear, my guess is that the Marlins think Guillen could keep a tranquil clubhouse atmosphere because he's also Latino. What they don't know is there was some kind of verbal war between Zambrano and some Dominican players during the last World Baseball Classic and it wasn't some kind of a friendly trash talk. Both Reyes and Ramirez were part of the Dominican team. Let's see how Zambrano reacts when a grounder goes through Ramirez's legs with men in scoring position. Or let's see how Zambrano reacts to Guillen's criticism, his fellow countryman. That team has a potential to be really good, but it also has the potential to be a ticking bomb. Let's see how good Guillen really is.— EL Zorro
- .167 Against Chuck James. That's tearing the cover off of the ball.— ALJ
- Phillies fall to 3rd in the division behind Nats and Braves, once Nats sign Prince.— Romus
- What have you done for me lately? OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH YEA! I AM A HOWARDHATER AND A DIE-HARD PHILA SPORTS FAN. COME PLAYOFF TIME HE'S WEAK LIKE MCSCABB. THROW ALL THE NUMBERS YOU WANT. PLAY OFF TIME IS THE MIDNIGHT HOUR. IF YOU DON'T PERFORM THERE, YOU'RE NOT GETTING RESPECT. LOOK AT MCSCABB, BEFORE HIS HERNIA PROB, HE WAS ON HIS WAY TO BE THE EAGLES ALLTIME SINGLE-SEASON BEST QB BUT BIRDS WERE NOT GOING TO MAKE THE PLAYOFFS. LOOKING FORWARD TO HOWARDS SUBS GETTING BIG NUMBERS AND THE RETURN OF JEFF GARCIA.— jerseyjoe
- Good call on the posts Mark1, except, then we get JerseyJoe, a 'die hard Philly sports fan'. Die hard, JerseyJoe, your post isn't worthy of this bunch.
Howard will feed on Volstad in Chicago. Love the tent reference, Bears. Cirque di Soleil, for sure.— 24sDad - That means Howard hits only 12 HRs this year --- but still maintains his 35% K.— 4thand10
- A lot of haters and just plain negative posters here. Ban wagon fans I guess... and of course the hater. And just after the holidays too...— Phillydave
- Well Dad, it was civil and entertaining for awhile!....I'm only about 90 min from the Marlins new park and can't wait to see the fireworks when that team gets together...it'll be all man hugs, high fives and strippers for the first few months with all the ecitement of the new stadium and the new uniforms and the new team....HOWEVER, if by some chance, Reyes gets hurt, Hanley sulks, LoMo gets sent down again, Stanton rips one of his massive hammy's and Guillen is caught with the GMs daughter.....all bets are off! This may very well be the first time there is a mass killing within a MLB clubhouse! Youadd Zambrano to that mix, it's like making a crack sundae with cocaine sprinkles on top and a dusting of PCP for good measure.....viva le' revolucion!— Mark1npt
- LOL on the Marlins...I read on some site how people are placing bets if Zambrano will end up shattering the new state of the art aquarium that will be behind home plate...All they need now is a comeback for Milton Bradley, then they'll be completely disfunctional. — bearsfriend
- ryan howard has more homers, by a wide margin, than any hitter in baseball since 2006...citing that is not as bad as the eagles giving out andy's numbers through 2004 as the reason he's still around...howard is becoming more like andre igoduodala...its not that they arent pretty good players...its that they are being paid like they are top 5 in the game, and they arent...— jim715
- @bear......it will go one of two ways......they will either be the most dynamic, fun to watch, entertaining surprise team of 2012 going wire to wire and salsa-dancing all the way to the WS...or.....the bailbondsmen in Miami will have all the business they can handle. I really don't think MLB wants to see the latter, so I'm betting this is the new dynamic young team of the future to watch along with the Nats over the next 10 years.....MLB cannot afford to have failures in either of these cities, not with the investments they are making......money talks......especially in DC and Miami......they are the two cities outside of Hollywood where it's not really who you know, it's what you're worth....you can get anything you want in those towns with your money, playboy pinups, Tony Montana wannabees, Congressional Resolutions named after you or even a Presidency for the taking.....all if you have the $$$$$$$$. We've all heard of "too big to fail".....welcome to the Marlins and Nats new corporate slogans......they should both have billboards in the outfield saying as much. OK...off my soapbox!— Mark1npt
- Ryan Howard is one of the 5 greatest phillies of all time. he's an all time legend. i hate phillies fans who hate on him. they need to get a clue or just go away.— Ryan
- It's not true Zambrano is behind all those kidnappings in his country.— EL Zorro
- Howard sucks. He signed his big contract and now he has nothing to play for. His regular-season play has regressed every year and his performance in the playoffs...well it just doesn't get any worse.— philly57
- One of the sad outcomes of the Phillies recent success is having to read the ridiculous comments by the "bandwagoneer fans" on these boards. All of you that bash the best offensive hitter on this team (while in the midst of their greatest run in their 130 year history) are so incredibly ignorant and stupid. The lack of baseball knowledge in this town is so apparent (as evidenced by the Eagles/Sixers analogies on these boards). The Phillies may have great attendence, but many of the attendees don't even understand the game of baseball. It makes me long for the days of the Vet in the late 80's...at least I knew the attendees were true baseball fans.— Phront_Runner
- Phront Runner, facts are facts. Ryan Howard's performance has regressed the past two seasons and his playoff stats are abominable. It doesn't take a baseball genius to comprehend that his numbers are down across the board since 2010.— philly57
- howard needs to forget about trying to hit home runs and learn how to hit the ball hard again... every year since his first 2 years... his home runs totals have dropped... when he came into the league he didnt look like he was trying to hit home runs. he was trying to hit the ball hard and they would just go... that's hitting 101. you dont try to hit home runs. put a good swing on the ball and hit it hard. they just happen.— Apollo Creed
- Exactly Apollo, but the manager/hitting guru loves the long ball and tell his players to swing hard all the time, which is a huge mistake. All you have to do, like you say, is put a good swing and hit the ball where is pitched.— EL Zorro
- please rueben get us david wright enough with the pitching already i doesnt matter how good u pitch if ucant score— terhet034
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