Even though his final few years were, at times, hard to watch, there's no denying how epic the prime portion of Ryan Howard's career was. One of the premier sluggers of his era, the first baseman put together an MVP campaign in 2006, a runner-up encore a few years later, and capped off his best years with an NLCS MVP in 2009.
To put any Philadelphia Phillies player in the same company as him is often bordering on sacrilegious, simply because there are few players from any team in recent history that can compare to peak Howard. Yet, here I am, telling you that Kyle Schwarber belongs in that conversation.
Why? Well, Schwarber just matched Howard's franchise record of the most 40-homer seasons with his fourth such campaign, following up his own second-place MVP finish with another monstrous performance. And, comparing their respective primes reveals some striking similarities.
Phillies fans shouldn't lose sight of how historically good Kyle Schwarber has been
Admittedly, this head-to-head comparison isn't perfect; Howard's best five-year stretch -- which we're calling the 2006-10 seasons -- is comprised of his literal physical prime, as he was in his mid-to-late twenties for pretty much all of that time. Schwarber, meanwhile, only got to Philly as a 29-year-old, meaning we're cherry-picking the production from his early thirties.
Nevertheless, these two titans match up pretty darn well. Acknowledging that Schwarber still has another month to add on to his totals, here's how they stack up over their respective five-year primes with the Phillies.
Kyle Schwarber (2022-26) vs. Ryan Howard (2006-10)
Schwarber: 755 games played, .229/.351/.511, 227 HR, 515 RBI, 134 OPS+, 13.4 WAR
Howard: 768 games played, .278/.374/.573, 229 HR, 680 RBI, 141 OPS+, 15.0 WAR
What did I tell you? It's pretty incredible how close they are, even if Schwarber's batting average suffers due to an immutable strikeout habit. Assuming he stays healthy, it's actually all but certain that he'll surpass Howard's best five-year stretch of home runs, which is preposterous considering the older star averaged more than 45 per season during our sample window.
Howard, who does have an MVP award and finished inside the top 10 in all five of his seasons, definitely has the accolades advantage, though not by much. Both have three All-Star nods and one Silver Slugger within our timeframe, and Schwarber would definitely be leading the latter category were it not for Shohei Ohtani.
Of course, this doesn't really mean anything on the field, but it's fun to put into context just how good Schwarber has been during what will come to be known as the first half of his Phillies career. Next on his list of goals? Hitting 155 more homers to catch up to Howard's career mark, which ranks second all time in franchise history.
Add us as a preferred source on Google