Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Prince Fielder or Ryan Howard?


Jason Stark has an interesting debate on ESPN right now - Who's The Best Young Slugger In Baseball: Prince Fielder or Ryan Howard?

His answer? There is no wrong choice.
Posted by Brad at 12:47 PM
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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ryan Howard, Born 11/19/79.

Prince Fielder, Born 5/9/84

What is he using to define the term "young"? That's a pretty big difference; one guy's 28 and one turns 24 in 3 months. Pujols is about 60 days older than Ryan Howard, so I would choose Pujols as my young slugger. But if you're comparing a guy who is currently in his prime, to a guy who is much younger and they seem equal, wouldn't it be a no brainer to take the younger guy? I'll take Fielder....thanks.

January 23, 2008 at 1:37 PM
Benjamin said...

ap beat me to it.

January 23, 2008 at 1:38 PM
Anonymous said...

Actually, Stark's answer was Ryan Howard, because he has seen him play more often.

I think it's interesting that the people who commented on that chat were almost overwhelmingly in Fielder's camp. I also find it interesting that several said they were from NY. Looks like they're already heavily scouting a guy they hope will be a future Yankees player.

January 23, 2008 at 2:26 PM
Anonymous said...

I like how he picks Howard, and uses the reasoning that he's seen more of him. Howard made his debut 9/1/04, and Prince made his in June of '05. That's about a half season of differnce. Prince has about 250 less AB's than Howard for their careers; again that's about a half season difference. He's basing his choice on half a season, and then treating it like it's some tell tale sign of things to come because it's so much larger of a sample size. Nice.

He's comparing guys who are 4 years apart in age, who have both played out of their skulls for their age for several years, but focusing on that 1/2 year that he saw more of the older guy. Good job. I saw Chad Moeller hit for the cycle once, I'd probably take him rather than the top catching prospects in AAA right now. WTF?

January 23, 2008 at 2:53 PM
Anonymous said...

I also saw that before ESPN, Stark was a beat writer in Philadelphia a la Tom H. here in Milwaukee. Perhaps he's a bit biased....and an "either or" decision is the best we could hope for.....

My favorite line from this was, "....Fielder had a better year in the majors at age 23 than Howard had in A ball when he was 23." I can't wait to watch more of those moon shots launch out of Miller Park.

January 24, 2008 at 10:39 AM

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