Why Ryan Howard is not worth a top-10 draft pick

	Ryan Howard may have hit 58 homers last season, but can he do it again? Chuck Solomon/SI

By Ray Flowers, Special to SI.com, SportsGrumblings.com

Ryan Howard mania seems to be sweeping the fantasy universe. I've received e-mails asking if Howard is good enough to be the second pick in a standard mixed draft. I even received an e-mail asking if he is worth the No. 1 pick, at which point I almost fell out of my chair.

I don't think Howard is worth a top-five pick in mixed leagues. In fact, if I was sitting there with the 10th pick and Howard was available, I would say that there would be about as much chance of me calling out his name as there is of the Devil Rays winning the World Series. Here's why.

THE TREND

According to information at MockDraftCentral.com, here are the top five picks in standard 5x5 drafts as of March 8:

1. Albert Pujols: The most consistently excellent RH hitter in 50 years?
2. Alfonso Soriano: Maybe I should write a column about him too?
3. Jose Reyes: The top SS in the game, he could be even better in 2007.
4. Alex Rodriguez: The definition of money in the bank.
5. Howard

THE GOOD

In 2006 Howard had 58 HRs and 149 RBIs, both best in the majors. He hit .313, which led the NL among lefthanded hitters. His .425 OBP was the seventh-best mark in the majors; his .659 slugging percentage was second overall; his 1.084 OPS was the third best in the majors. Howard is also the first hitter in major league history to club more than 80 homers (82) in his first 1,000 career at-bats.

All of that and I'm still not sold? Nope, I'm not.

THE BAD

The average major league hit rate is right around 30%, with hit rate being determined by the following equation: (H-HR) / (AB-HR-K).

That the average major leaguer will produce a hit on about 30% of the balls that he puts in play. A high-average hitter such Todd Helton will likely have a rate around 33-35%.

Howard's hit rate in 2006 was 36%, an extremely high number. He had an even higher hit rate in half a season in 2005 (37%). It's possible that Howard will be able to maintain these lofty numbers, but they're on the extreme high side and signal the possibility that Howard's average could take a tumble this year if he regresses even slightly toward the big-league average.

Howard hit .313 with 182 hits and 181 K's in 581 at-bats in 2006. If we subtract the times that Howard struck out from his AB total (581-182), we find there were 399 ABs that didn't result in a strikeout. Divide Howard's hits into the times he actually hit the ball and we find that he hit .456 when he put the ball in play.

I don't know about you, but that number disturbs me greatly. Another noted K artist, Jason Bay, hit .286 last season (163 for 570). Bay struck out 163 times, meaning that he hit .400 when he put the ball in play. Other strikeout leaders such as Alfonso Soriano and Adam Dunn hit .368 and .357, respectively, by this measure.

So let's assume, just for the sake of argument, that Howard had hit .406 in such situations last year (his average on balls in play in 2005 was .405). His overall average would then have fallen from .313 to .279 (162/581). Since Howard hit .288 in 2005, it seems that a slight correction might be coming this year, at least in batting average.