I think it may be close on Howard to the Hall of Fame. I think he still has work to do, but there’s no question what he has given the Phillies in recent years. I think the Phils hurt his chances a little by bringing him up so late. 30/100 for six straight years is tough to argue with, no matter how much you strike out. 45/136 or better for four straight years in pretty much impossible to argue with.

Watching Oswalt right now is like watching a guy in spring training. I think he will be just fine when he gets a few more starts under his belt. That should make the oost season roster choices interesting as far as the pitchers left out and put in to that roster.

Note: Number in parentheses indicates all-time rank

Black Ink Batting – 25 (78), Average HOFer ≈ 27
Gray Ink Batting – 78 (308), Average HOFer ≈ 144
Hall of Fame Monitor Batting – 100 (156), Likely HOFer ≈ 100
Hall of Fame Standards Batting – 24 (537), Average HOFer ≈ 50

You can check out stuff in more detail over there (http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/howarry01.shtml). Basically the way I understand it working is the Black Ink stat is indicative of the number of times the player led the league in a major relevant category, Grey Ink is how often they finished in the top 5 or 10, and the Monitor and Standards metrics are for Hall-indicative milestones and whatnot.

Howard catches a lot of flak from saberists and he does at times frustrate for sure. 30/100 6 years straight is pretty neat, though.

He never pitched in relief in the minors. 76 appearances, 76 starts.