The Myth of Howie Kendrick

HK-47 is better than your favorite second-baseman. And if you think that Nate Sutton or Kevin Frandson are any better, then yous a fool…

Howie is solid gold, pick on someone else this year…like Brandon Wood or Joe Saunders.

Kendrick is who we are complaining about? We need more threads bashing Brian Stokes. Thats what we need.

A good solid player. And he played like a great player the second half of 2009. It would be nice if he could do that over a full year, catch up with the Canos, Pedroias, and Kinslers, but if not at least we’ve got a solid .290 hitter with occasional power, a decent (if not gold) glove who can swipe 15 bases. And if Howie never fulfills the upside, then in 2012-2013 we can look forward to Amarista.

yeah, Howie Kendrick is this team’s biggest problem right now…(add sarcasm)

Another lame fanpost. Boooooooooooooooooo

While I agree that we might treat HK as the next coming of a batting title messiah and maybe overrate him at times, I think he still has potential. He shows flashes of the great hitter he can be as seen by his second half in 2009. By some accounts, he is hitting at a pedestrian pace, but have you looked at the statistics close. HK performs after the All-Star Break, having a BA of about .323. HK was never predicted to hit about 30 HRs. The scouts have touted him as a doubles machine. I think he is an important player on our team and I still think his time will come when he hits out of the 2 slot.

I think his main issue is the fact that injuries have plagued him throughout his career. I believe that without them HK could have been a bonafide hitter by now considering he seems to get them at the most inopportune times. This year should be a good judge of whether he can live up to our expectations.

Aaron Hill came out of nowhere considering he hit 28 HRs combined in 4 years and suddenly hit 36 is truly an anomaly. I doubt he even comes close this year. Man we should really trade for his .191 and 2 HRs right now.

Ian Kinsler is hitting about .313 with 0 HRs and 1 SB. I see the pretty good BA but thats about the only thing. Why is that? Because is also injury prone and started on the DL.

Martin Prado and Howie Kendrick are really similar and they play at about the same level. Also Prado can play about every single position on the field. Also he has about 100 more games than HK.

I bet millions if you were the GM of ATL you would have cut Kelly Johnson the same year. 3 million for a guy who hits about .264 hits about 7 HRs average and has no speed. I was not surprised he was cut, but he is now hitting out of his mind. I doubt he sustains it.

Um Orland Hudson usually wants about 8 million a year. That would stupid. His stats don’t support the amount of money he wants. Why do you think he lasts so long as a free agent.

I know he’s been playing bad defense of late. But I think he will really pick it up

If we don’t have even minimal standards of security, then any mentally-challenged vagrant can wander in.

I am always impressed by those who use words they don’t understand in order to make their point seem more edumacated. Case in point:

Same with Orlando Hudson who is a former all star and gold glove winner with better range than the “eponymous” Howie Kendrick.

Other howlers:

No one really heard of Ian Kinsler a couple years ago and then in 2008 he hit .319 with 18 hr and last year he went 30/30.

Dan Uggla is someone baseball fans are familiar with if they take more than a cursory look at teams other than the Angels yet he is still a relative unknown.

Really? Nobody had heard of Uggla or Kinsler until recently? The level of cerebral atrophy of this author is evident; the pinhead thinks he’s discovered fire.

Others have already pointed out one more huge difference between Kendrick and Cano, Kinsler, Uggla, Utley, Hudson and most of the rest: Kendrick costs a fraction of what those other players earn. Add to the fact that Kendrick is 26 (as opposed to 30 [Uggla], 31 [Utley], or 32 [Hudson]) and we can comfortably presume the developmental curve is far from flattening out for Kendrick.

Not to mention his lowest season totals in either category were .285/.730 in 2006. He’s finished higher, quite significantly so in some cases, every year since.Now, I don’t typically delve into stat discussions much, but from what I know an OPS of .700+ is considered pretty good. Maybe not great, but good enough to be in the majors and add value to a lineup. Everyone knows a .300 hitter is really good.

Just from those two pieces of information, it’s safe to say we have a “pretty good” 2B in Howie Kendrick. He might not hit 30 jacks a year, but he’s a 2B, not a corner player. There’s only a few Chase Utley’s out there. And if you’re going to try and tell me Kinsler is better in the field…yeah maybe when he’s on it and not on the DL.

We can only play with what our team can acquire. I’d be fine with either Howie or Maicer at 2B, but considering the decent chance that we may need Izzy to take over 3B this year, Howie is gonna your Angels 2B for a while. Rejoice, it could be much worse.

Pedroia is 26 and so is Cano

I agree with much of your argument. Howie, for the potential stamped on his forehead is at best just an average second baseman.

What makes it even worse is that he’s not very clutch. He gets brain freezes at the wrong times and his head sometimes just doesn’t seem to be there.

Personally, I’ve always like Adam Kennedy more than Howie. Say what you want about Kennedy, but he was clutch for us.

For a bases to start all rankings are out of 193 2b in the majors in that span that played.

Apparently some people are just blinded by their affiliation.

But really, the comparison isn’t even close. Kendrick has the baseball IQ of a doormat.

We have yet to see what the guy can do over a full season. As much as I for one still think very highly of his upside, the burden of proof is on the dude who hasn’t come close to qualifying for the batting crown despite having the job for four years now.

walk.
off.
bunt.

total awesomeness.

I had the full expectation that the team would maintain a .600 win percentage or better. Since that is not the case, consider me falling off it until things pick up"

Just blame it on…
A.) Howie Kendrick not living up to his potential
B.) Mike Scioscia forgetting how to be a manager
C.) The Wood effect
D.) The bullpen’s failures
E.) Arte Being more concerned with the all star game than fielding a competitive team

I think this is guy is talking about the OTHER Howard. You, know, the one that sells appliances.

So Howie is “average” or “good”, but how does he “suck”? What is the realistic alternative for the Angels? Izturis is hurt right now and, as I said before, don’t be surprised if he becomes our primary 3B.

MLB isn’t fantasy baseball – you can’t always have the best. Well, until each Yankee Swap season (the Yankees swap unlimited fundage for your best FA’s). Right now, the Angels have maybe two players that can be in the conversation as the best at their positions – Kendry Morales and Jered Weaver. Outisde of that, they have at least a couple “good” players and “average” players, including Howie.

So, uclahy, what do you suggest we do – trade Brian Fuentes to Atlanta for Martin Prado because they need more saves? Again, this isn’t fantasy baseball, so nothing like that is gonna work. In MLB, you have to accept the contractual, financial and business realities of each team’s current situation and go from there.

I am not sure who I am annoyed about more. . .

1) People who are ready to throw the baby out, fire Scioscia, and make wholesale criticisms, or

2) the people who feel that any criticism against any Angel player (except Robb Quinlan), is jumping off the bandwagon.

What am I saying when I (personally) criticize HK?

1) He’s not the player we thought he would be when he first came up. Could he suddenly become that batting champion, we thought we would be getting when he first came up? Possibly, but at this point probably doubtful. I certainly think that he could come up with a Darin Erstad-type abberation year (2000).

2) HK is neither among the worst second basemen or is among the best secondbasemen. That’s what he is. if you think he’s better than Pedrioia, Cano, Utley, Phillips or others in the first tier, you are truly delusional. Unless you want to be laughed out of the building, you should at least acknowledge reality. In the end, you might like the fact that Howie is cheap, is a good clubhouse guy and plays a good second-base. I can respect that. That is reality. With his potential, there really is no reason, that HK shouldn’t already be the #2 hitter on this team. However, he has never shown this kind of talent on the major league level and has never earned Soth’s respect in this regard. I would add that the fact that Scioscia sent HK down last year, shows us that the team is well aware of his deficiencies, and his enigmatic talent. Could you imagine the Padres sending down Gwynn, the Red Sox sending down Boggs or the Twins sending down Mauer to AAA in their fourth year?

3) HK should clearly not be made the poster boy for why the team is underperforming right now. There is enough blame there to go all around. Getting rid of Howie at this point is not the answer. If we were going to get rid of underperforming players right now, we would be getting rid of everyone except for six or seven guys. I am not ready to make wholesale changes. It even ridiculous to think about this at least for another month when the trade deadline begins to loom.

4) Can Howie improve and show us the potential that once had us so excited? I wouldn’t rule it out entirely. But, pining away for this moment, while reading five year old Baseball America scouting reports, will not make it happen. I hope for the best, but if a better option comes up, I will take it in a heart beat.

In the end, I would not be surprised in the least to see Izturis displace HK. Scoiscia clearly has more confidence in Izzy, as do I. I am not saying that this will or should be happening soon, but I am saying that it wouldn’t surprise me to see it happen eventually.

is the least of our worries right now.