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September 28, 2006

The Ethics of Intentional Walks in September

O
n September 8th, the Phillies' Ryan Howard hit his 55th and 56th homeruns in game 141. That left him 21 games to break Roger Maris's unofficial record of 61 HRs in a season. He looked like a shoe-in because he was averaging 1 HR for every 9.17 at bats. With 21 games left, he would get at least 80 more plate appearances.

Since then, Howard -- in 17 games -- has gone 20 for 56, a hefty .357 average. But he's hit only 2 HRs. (He was robbed of another HR because of an umpire's horrendous blown call in Houston 12 days ago who mistook a fan trying to catch a HR as the ball hitting the top of the wall and dropping straight down. Physics, man, physics.)

Why the sudden power outage? Howard has received 22 walks in that 17 game span -- including 3 intentional passes in the Phillies' 14-inning win over the Nationals last night (and a handful against other recent opponents). In his first 141 games, Howard had 115 BBs -- or .81 per game. But since he hit his 56th HR, he's averaged 1.3 BBs per game -- a 50% increase. (Over a full season, that would be 210 BBs. Barry Bonds holds the record with 232 BBs, including a mind-boggling 120 intentional walks in 2004, when he hit 45 HRs.)

Clearly, teams are pitching Howard more carefully. Okay. But teams are also intentionally walking Howard with runners on first base -- as in last night's game, 3 times in extra innings to put the winning run in scoring position.

So, is that right, fair, ethical? Call it what you want. Should teams -- especially teams out of the pennant race -- be intentionally walking Ryan Howard at this point? Should baseball etiquette (if such a thing exists) dictate that teams like the Nationals, or the Phils' upcoming opponent, the Marlins who are also out of the playoff hunt, challenge Howard to beat them? Or is taking the bat out of his hands okay?

In comparison, in Roger Maris's last 18 games in 1961 -- from September 10th through October 1st -- he played in 18 games, hit 4 HRs in 59 ABs, and walked only 13 times. During that 18-game span, Mickey Mantle, who hit behind Maris that year in which they both chased Ruth's record of 60 HRs, missed 7 games because of injury and hit only 2 HRs in the other 11 games. Maris hit 2 of his 61 HRs without Mantle behind him down the stretch.

Howard, on the other hand, has had Jeff Conine hitting behind him most of September. Conine has hit 0 HRs, 4 2B, 0 3B since September 8th.

UPDATE: Commenter Syd points out the interesting fact that every post-Maris player who's broken the 60 barrier was a National Leaguer.

Posted by shertaugh at September 28, 2006 4:43 PM

Comments

You assume that "ethical" is synonymous with "how I wish things were."

Posted by: t at September 28, 2006 6:48 PM

Can we please stop with the "Unofficial Maris Record" stuff. The current holder of the home run record is one Barry Bonds and Howard is nowhere near his number.

Posted by: Chuchundra at September 28, 2006 11:01 PM

Maris, amazingly, still holds the American League record. Everyone else who has hit 61 (all three of them) did it in the National League. So is Howard, for that matter.

Posted by: Syd at September 29, 2006 7:06 PM

And how many intentional walks did Bonds have when he hit 70 home runs? IBBs are part of the game. Teams shouldn't be intentionally walking Howard, but they shouldn't be intentionally walking Howard because it's bad baseball strategy, not because it's "unethical." If Howard were a good enough hitter that it made sense to intentionally walk him, that's a different question.

Posted by: Ted at September 30, 2006 4:02 PM