$15,432 per Strikeout: MVP Worthy?

A few months back the Philadelphia Phillies went to arbitration with Ryan Howard.  The Phillies wanted to pay Howard $7 million dollars this season with Howard arguing for $10 million. 

Ryan Howard and his agent likely boasted the 47 home runs and 136 RBI he gathered in his '07 campaign and probably mentioned the fact that he won the MVP Award in 2006.

After winning the $10 million that he wanted (by the way, I still would like to have a nice friendly discussion with that arbitrator) he said, "It will not affect my season."

Haha, yea ok...

That $10 million dollars equates to $61,728.39 per game, and, assuming four at bats on average per game, it gives him a lofty $15,432 per at bat. 

Now granted, the writing of this article pretty much comes out of my frustrations of having to watch Howard come to the plate 51 times this season and strikeout.  Yes, that is $787,032 that the Philadelphia Phillies have paid to Ryan Howard for striking out.

I guess to be fair, we need to account for how much we have paid him to hit.  The Phillies have paid Howard $324,072 to gather all 21 hits in his 127 at bats. 

Just to put everything in perspective, 205 Major League Baseball players have more hits this season than the man making $10 million dollars. 

That includes players like, Eugenio Velez who is making $390,000 this year, Blake DeWitt who is making $390,000, and Paul Bako who is making $750,000.

I might have forgotten to also mention that he leads the Major Leagues in strikeouts, but you probably knew that by now.

I knew Howard was in a slump, but I never thought I'd see the day that I did last week--the day Philadelphia fans booed Ryan Howard while cheering Pat Burrell.