Why can't sluggers like Ryan Howard find a job? It's in the numbers
Camps across Florida and Arizona are less than two weeks from opening, and smart people around baseball are wondering why a handful of proven power threats have yet to secure employment.
Chris Carter, who led the National League with 41 homers in 2016, is contemplating a move to Japan. Mike Napoli, who slugged 34 homers for the American League-champion Indians, is unsigned. Pedro Alvarez, who has averaged 27 homers over a five-year span, is jobless. So are Ryan Howard, Adam Lind and Justin Morneau.
It led venerable ESPN.com baseball writer Jayson Stark to ask, "Does baseball still dig the long ball?" His conclusion: No, front offices value the complete player — ahem, defense — over home runs.
"Mostly, it's telling us that teams are squeezing the emotion out of every decision, because they now have the data to do that," Stark wrote. "And the more sophisticated the data, the easier it is for them to rank players according to the value of their complete array of skills, as opposed to the value of any one skill."
But what if the answer was simpler than that? Could it be that teams are no longer willing to pay a premium for home runs when they can find them just about anywhere?
In 2016, 5,610 homers were hit. That was the second-highest total ever. Ever. Including the steroid era. Only in 2000, at the height of it, were there more homers hit (5,693) in Major League Baseball.
Even more telling: There were 111 players who bashed 20 or more home runs in 2016. That was an all-time record. How much of a spike was it? Thanks to Baseball-Reference, here is a chart of 20-plus home-run hitters by season, since the strike:
| Year ▾ | #Matching 20+ HR |
|---|---|
| 2016 | 111 |
| 2015 | 64 |
| 2014 | 57 |
| 2013 | 70 |
| 2012 | 79 |
| 2011 | 68 |
| 2010 | 77 |
| 2009 | 87 |
| 2008 | 92 |
| 2007 | 86 |
| 2006 | 91 |
| 2005 | 78 |
| 2004 | 93 |
| 2003 | 86 |
| 2002 | 81 |
| 2001 | 90 |
| 2000 | 102 |
| 1999 | 103 |
| 1998 | 85 |
| 1997 | 80 |
| 1996 | 83 |
Whoa. That is a 73 percent increase in the number of 20-plus home-run hitters from a season ago and a 94 percent increase from 2014, which was the low point in the post-steroid era.
So, it could be that general managers don't dislike the long ball; rather, they know they can find it from more sources than ever. Why pay a premium for home runs when someone like, say, Freddy Galvis can hit 20 of them?
That, of course, assumes that the spike in 2016 was not an outlier. We do not know that yet. Last September, Phillies players and coaches had difficulty explaining the spike, but some presented viable theories.
Granted, the unsigned sluggers listed above are mostly one-dimensional players. First base is the easiest position to play, thus the most replaceable on the field. More and more American League teams use the designated hitter as a crutch for the everyday position players, a chance for them to still bat but rest their body from the rigors of playing the field.
The Phillies had four players reach the 20-homer plateau in 2016: Howard, Galvis, Tommy Joseph and Maikel Franco. They signed Michael Saunders, who crushed a career-high 24 homers in 2016, to a one-year, $9 million deal.